A brief for the National Retailers Association shows that 133,000 jobs will be lost in retail over the next 3 years.
Ernst & Young said that 33,000 of those job losses would be due to the Government’s refusal to introduce GST on online purchases under $1,000. We have indicated in previous articles that the $1,000 threshold is basically a tax break for consumers that has the potential to cause extra hardship for retailers.
Woolworths CEO, Grant O'Brien, has said that the $1,000 threshold is not the biggest issue facing retailers and that proposing extra taxes on consumers is not the way to go. That is probably easy to say when the bulk of your business is in food and is unlikely to be impacted by online imports.
The National Retailers Association says that these job losses are more significant than those in the manufacturing industry and deserve strong corrective action by the government.