A nation of retail clerks?

Globe & Mail Economics reporter Heather Scoffield reports today that with the decline in the manufacturing sector, Canada is rapidly becoming a nation of retail clerks.

Along with this shift from making things to selling things, Canadian workers are taking a serious hit in the wallet.

"On average, hourly wages for a typical manufacturing worker were $21.66, according to Statistics Canada. That's 46 per cent higher than the average hourly wage in the retail sector, where workers are typically paid $14.87 an hour. And retail employees are often part-timers, and work far fewer hours in any given week than factory workers. So the contrast in weekly wages in the two sectors is even starker.

In February, 2008, the average weekly earnings, including overtime, for factory workers was $950.84 a week, almost double the average weekly pay of $488.58 for retail employees."

And much like factory workers, North American workers on this new retail assembly line have to stand all day for half the pay!