Retail constitutes a significant portion of the private sector in Sweden with more than half a million employees. The retail sector is currently undergoing a structural transformation as a result of globalization and digitalization. E-commerce is growing and constitutes an increasing part of the total turnover within this sector, which ultimately poses challenges in such forms as altered types of employment arrangements and new ways of working. These changes place demands on mobility and skill development.

Simultaneously, the more traditional risk factors of the work environment remain in place, such as physically demanding tasks with repetitive load and heavy lifting. In addition, many retail employees have inconvenient working hours and service work with frequent customer contact.

Although trade is a sector with many employees, undergoes extensive changes and is characterized by a wide variety of employment arrangements and work requirements, research on the psychosocial work environment in retail sector remains limited.

While there are relatively equal numbers of men and women working in retail, there is a clear gender segregation in the sector, meaning that men and women, in many cases, work with different types of services and products. For example, it is more common to find women working in clothing sales, while men are often work in IT and technology sales. Because of this gender divide within the industry, it is possible that women’s and men’s working conditions may vary, resulting perhaps in gender differences in terms of health and well-being.

What is the long-term goal for this project?

We hope to increase knowledge about the importance of the various types and terms of employment that exist within retail. Such knowledge will contribute to the development of a sustainable working life in retail by preventing work-related ill health while bolstering the sector’s competitive standing.

Reference group

The NOWSTARS retail reference group consists of representatives from employers’ organizations and trade unions.

The group consists of the following people

• Stefan Carlén, The Commercial Employees’ Union
• Shadé Jalali, Unionen
• Ola Sundström, The Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers
• Charlotte Tarschys, Akavia

The retail project also includes a separate research project funded by the Swedish Retail and Wholesale Council (project manager Magnus Sverke). The project is called Retail as an attractive workplace: The importance of work environment factors for attitudes, behaviors and health. This project has the same reference group.