The economic situation of trade in 2008

In 2008, the household consumption driven by the trade sector channel decreased by 0.4% in volume, after an average annual increase of 2.4% between 1999 and 2007. Sales of vehicles and automobile repair fell by 2.8% in volume. At the same time, retail trade and craft sales remained stable (+ 0.2%) in spite of the dynamism of some sectors as the non-food specialized retail trade sector (+ 4.0%) and the pharmacy sector (+ 1.5%). Finally, the wholesale trade sales slowed down in 2008 (+ 1.7% in volume compared with +2.4% in 2007). Salaried employment went down in 2008 across the trade industry with 12 900 jobs lost (- 0.4%).