A year after the extension of opening hours it seems to be complicated to judge the economic impact. According to Statistics Denmark, sales of food and groceries have made only negligible gains. Meanwhile, smaller stores have succumbed to competitors who have the resources to staff those extended hours. This year alone, according to Retail Institute Scandinavia, 96 grocery stores have closed, quite a bump compared to 2009-12, when 69 stores closed on average per year. However, 57 new grocers opened during the same time period. The head of Retail Institute Scandinavia, said it was hard to determine how many shops closed as a result of the new hours and how many closed due to the continued expansion of established discount chains. An associate marketing professor at the Copenhagen Business School suggested smaller businesses would struggle with the added costs of staying open.
English: http://cphpost.dk/business/new-shopping-hours-have-changed-consumer-habits
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.