Employment Theory and the Wheel of Retailing: Segmenting the Circle

This article attempts to highlight the transitory nature of the retail labour market and provide a theoretical framework that accounts for the employment changes that have occurred in retailing since the Second World War. Using the concept of cyclicality embodied within the Wheel of Retailing, it identifies how at each stage of the cycle there develops a new dominant form of employment relation. The British grocery sector is taken as an example to illustrate this relationship.