Retail Means Jobs

R etailers are well aware how important our industry is to the nation’s economy. To underscore this with lawmakers and the public, NRF has launched an unprecedented year-long campaign to highlight how vital our industry is to the economic recovery and to ensure that Congress supports a pro-retail, pro-jobs agenda.

Backed by our Board’s approval to invest significantly in the area of advocacy, NRF’s “Retail Means Jobs” campaign is the most significant advocacy effort in our 100-year history, comprised of lobbying, grassroots, advertising, social media, earned media and more. This intensive effort on behalf of America’s retail industry and the tens of millions whose jobs depend on it will significantly strengthen the advocacy footprint of retail to better reflect its enormous economic footprint.

The ammunition behind this campaign is a new study conducted for NRF by PricewaterhouseCoopers that shows the retail industry directly and indirectly accounts for one in four U.S. jobs and nearly 20 percent of GDP. To be precise, our industry supports 41.6 million jobs, including those in retail and industries that provide goods and services to retail, and contributes $2.48 trillion annually to GDP. That makes retail one of the largest private employers in the nation, with double the number of workers in health care and nearly four times the number in manufacturing. The comprehensive study breaks the data down by state and congressional district, so every senator, representative and governor can be shown exactly what retail means to his or her constituents.

Job creation — not only within retail, but in all sectors of the economy — is the top priority of U.S. retailers. To bolster job creation we are delivering to Congress a detailed jobs, innovation and consumer value agenda that covers corporate tax reform, the Main Street Fairness Act, transportation infrastructure, visas for foreign travelers, fair trade agreements, consumer privacy, health care reform and other topics impacting bottom lines for retailers and other businesses.

The home for this campaign is www.RetailMeansJobs.com, an interactive action center designed to help retailers rally in support of these initiatives. The PwC study, jobs agenda and other information are available there, along with an interactive 50-state map allowing visitors to view retail’s contribution to national, state and local economies. Links will make it easy to e-mail, tweet and Facebook members of Congress in support of our agenda.

With direct daily contact with U.S. consumers in every congressional district, retailers have an untapped grassroots potential larger than any other industry. We want to unleash that potential, but we need your help. Please visit www.RetailMeansJobs.com today. Sign up to support our effort, and share this website and our message with fellow retailers, friends in other businesses, your employees and — most of all — elected officials. Together, we can show “Retail Means Jobs” more than ever before.