Contrary to the market, retail trade eliminates 46 thousand jobs in 2026

For experts, the movement is influenced by a perfect storm that overlaps with the unemployment rate at historic lows: high interest rates, the economy losing strength, the explosion of betting, which compromises part of the income, and the migration of consumers to e-commerce.

The tendency is for the sector's performance to remain weak in the coming months.

On the one hand, the adverse macroeconomic scenario continues to put pressure on margins and sales. On the other hand, the market will still feel the impact of the dismissal of around 3,000 employees by Casas Bahia, which filed for judicial recovery last Sunday (16) and announced the closure of 298 stores.

In the first half of the year, retail trade, which accounts for 68% of the stock of vacancies in commerce as a whole, only generated vacancies in three months: March, May and June. In the first half of last year, it created 23,700 jobs, according to data from Caged.

When looking at the numbers by major sectors, commerce was the only one that eliminated vacancies in the first half of the year (-3,500), against a creation of 571.9 thousand vacancies in services, 168.9 thousand in construction, 143.4 thousand in industry and 40.8 thousand in agriculture.

The loss was not greater because, in addition to retail, the sector is also made up of car and motorcycle sales companies, which generate vacancies due to the growth in the use of delivery and transport applications, and wholesalers, who are also in the black as they feel less of the effect of the population's high indebtedness.

"Financing for consumption has become even more expensive, and this weighs heavily on durable goods sectors, such as electronics and furniture, which rely heavily on installments", observes economist Bruno Imaizumi, from consultancy 4intelligence.

Data from the Central Bank helps to measure the worsening of loan conditions. The interest rate for individuals with free resources, a measure that excludes real estate and rural financing, was 64% per year in June, compared to 59.4% per year a year ago, according to the latest data from the Central Bank. Credit card interest is 97.4% per year, compared to 92.1% in June 2025.

The cuts affected most different retail segments, but the highlight was clothing and accessory stores, which alone cut 30,900 jobs in the first six months of the year, according to Caged, equivalent to more than two thirds of the sector's entire negative balance in the period.

Next come shoe stores, with 11,300 jobs closed in the first half of the year, and supermarkets and hypermarkets, with a cut of 5,600 jobs, subsectors that have been increasingly exposed to competition from e-commerce, according to experts.

The 4intelligence specialist estimates that commerce should end 2026 with a net balance of formal vacancies close to zero. Traditionally, the sector's job market heats up in the second half of the year.

For Daniel Duque, economist at FGV Ibre (Brazilian Institute of Economics), the tendency is for employment to remain weak in retail trade. "It's not just Casas Bahia that's suffering, it's retail as a whole," he says.

Duque says that stores are affected, for example, by the increase in betting. "Studies show that the main item that bettors stop buying is clothing", he points out.

One of these surveys, by Peers Consulting, reveals that around 23% of bettors reduced spending on clothes and footwear to allocate resources to online betting, while 19% cut expenses in supermarkets.

In the economist's assessment, this is just one of a series of factors that explain the bad situation in the commercial job market. "There is a long-term trend of expansion of virtual commerce through large websites, which employ much less."

The worsening macroeconomic scenario, he says, makes these problems more explicit. "These are factors that, alone, would not explain the drop we are seeing. But, in a bad macroeconomic scenario, with high interest rates and economic slowdown, they start to appear", he states.

Another point highlighted by the expert is the population's high debt in relation to income, at 49.8%, according to the latest data from the BC. It is a level that, according to him, limits the ability of families to assume new financial commitments, even in the face of a low unemployment rate.

Imaizumi says that large retailers play a relevant role in the weaker pace of retail employment this year due to the decrease in the number of physical stores.

"There is also a more structural movement, which is the migration to e-commerce. I see commerce losing space and job vacancies to online, which ends up migrating and hiring in service subsectors, such as storage, postal services, logistics, transport and inventory control."