MADRID, March 10 (EUROPA PRESS) - Retail trade registered sales growth of 7.1% in January compared to the same month of 2022, a rate 3.4 points higher than that of the previous month and the highest since May 2021, as reported this Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
With the data for January, retail trade sales chain two consecutive months of positive year-on-year rates after the rebound of 3.7% experienced in December 2022.
In January, food sales in the retail sector fell by 0.8% compared to the same month in 2022, thus already chaining five consecutive months of setbacks. For their part, those of other products shot up 17% due to the rise in sales of personal equipment (23%) and other goods (13%) and, to a lesser extent, household equipment (0.4 %).
These increases, together with the 2.8% rise in billing from service stations, explain why the month of January closed with a year-on-year rise in retail sales of 7.1%.
By means of distribution, interannual increases in sales were registered in all of them, especially in small chains (12.4%) and in large ones (9.8%). In large stores, turnover increased by 9.1%, while in single-location companies it rose by 2.4% year-on-year.
Stripping out seasonal and calendar effects, retail trade turnover increased by 5.5% in the first month of the year, seven tenths more than in December.
SALES RISE 0.4% IN THE MONTH
In monthly terms (January 2023 compared to December 2022), retail trade increased its sales by 0.4% in the seasonally adjusted series, a figure one tenth lower than that of the previous month.
With the advance of January, retail sales add up to six consecutive months of monthly increases.
By products, sales of food rose 0.5% in January in relation to the previous month, while those of other products advanced 5.4%, with increases of 4.7% in sales of other goods and 4.9% in personal equipment, compared to a 0.6% drop in sales of household equipment.
Sales from service stations, for their part, sank 20.9% in January compared to the month of December.
All distribution modes presented positive monthly rates in the first month of the year. The greatest monthly rise in sales was recorded by small chains (4.2%), followed by large chains (3.6%), department stores (1%) and single-location companies (0.5%).
EMPLOYMENT ACCELERATE ITS GROWTH RATE TO 0.8%
As regards employment, the sector registered a year-on-year increase in employment of 0.8% in January, a rate one tenth higher than that of December. With this rebound, employment in retail trade has now accumulated 21 consecutive months of year-on-year increases.
The greatest year-on-year growth in employment is observed in service stations (1.9%), large chains (1.7%) and small chains (1%), followed by single-location companies (0.7%). In contrast, large stores destroyed jobs by cutting employment by 1.5% compared to January 2022.
In monthly terms, employment in the sector fell by 1.2%, highlighting the fall in employment in large stores (-3.5%) and in single-location companies and small chains (-1.1% in both cases ).
SALES RISE IN ALL COMMUNITIES AND EMPLOYMENT, IN 12
Retail sales rose in the annual rate in all the autonomous communities in January, especially in the Canary Islands (13.3%), the Balearic Islands (12.2%), the Valencian Community (9.7%) and Madrid (7.9%), while Murcia (1.2%), Navarra (2.1%) and Castilla-La Mancha (3.5%) presented the most moderate increases.
For its part, employment in retail commerce increased in 12 communities at an annual rate, with the Canary Islands and Extremadura registering the largest increases (3% in both cases), followed by the Canary Islands, with an increase in employment of 2.8%.
At the other extreme, five regions cut staff in retail trade in relation to January 2022: Asturias (-3.3%), Murcia and Aragón (-0.8%), and Madrid and Cantabria (-0.4% ).
