(IDEX Online News) – U.S. specialty jewelry retailers have fewer employees per store than the typical American merchant, but jewelers pay their employees notably better than other retailers, according to new data from the Census Bureau’s Economic Census.

 

Here are highlights from the Census Bureau’s latest Economic Census:

 

·         The typical retail merchant in the U.S. market has just over 13 employees in each of their stores, while specialty jewelers have between five and six employees.

 

·         The typical retail merchant pays employees about $23,400 per year, while jewelers pay their employees about $26,800 per year, or roughly 15% higher than the average for the retail industry in America.

 

·         However, the typical retail employee in the U.S. market generates about $252,500 in annual sales, while the typical specialty jewelry employee generates only $188,000 in annual sales. This is puzzling, since the average transaction value for the jewelry industry is well above the average transaction value for the American retail market.

 

Definition of Terms

It is important for the reader to understand the terms we have used. A “firm” is an entity that can operate one or more jewelry stores. A “store” is a single jewelry door. We typically use “revenues” to describe a firm’s annual revenues, while we use “sales” to describe a single store’s top-line productivity.

 

Distribution of Specialty Jewelry Firm by Number of Employees

About two-thirds of all American specialty jewelers – more than 10,000 firms, virtually all single-store merchants – operate with fewer than five employees.

 

At the other end of the range, the largest eight specialty jewelry firms – those with one thousand or more employees – represent only 0.1% of the total specialty jewelry universe of firms. However, these eight firms employee nearly one-quarter of the industry’s total employees, and they generate roughly 30% of the total sales for specialty jewelers in America.

 

The graph below summarizes the census of American specialty jewelry firms – which may operate multiple stores – by the total number of employees working at that firm.

Source: Census Bureau

Census of Stores by Store Employment Level

The latest data from the Census Bureau also provides a detailed look at the number of employees per store at the store level. This differs from the “firm” level, since firms may operate several stores.

 

The data on the graph below illustrates that 85% of all American specialty jewelry stores operate with fewer than ten employees.  

 

Source: Census Bureau

Productivity & Pay by Employee Census

The table below compares sales per store, sales per employee, and compensation per employee by number of workers in a store.

 

Sales per employee jumps notably when there are 20 or more employees in a single store, as the table illustrates.  

Source: Census Bureau

If there is one surprise on the table above, it is the level of sales per store for stores with 100 or more employees: the Census Bureau says that six stores in America have more than 100 employees, and each of those stores generates nearly $84 million in jewelry sales. Those are true superstores!

 

Specialty Jewelers Operate Smaller Stores

The table below summarizes key data comparing financial and employment metrics of specialty jewelers versus the total retail universe in the American market.

 

While the table shows 0% of specialty jewelers have 100 or more employees in a store, the number is so small – six stores – that it does not “move the needle.”  

Source: Census Bureau