Here’s an idea

And fortunately for you, this is not one of my grandiose economic development ideas. This is from my better half. So, it is more practical since….. well you know, it comes from a woman.

We were shopping together one day and she was thinking how nice it would be to buy clothes regularly on sale. Of course, we all think that, however, this day we were shopping for work clothes. And she thought about what if certain stores had ongoing discounts for work clothes. And I thought well, why not.

We all know brick and mortar retail is going through difficult times. And yet, they are a major source of jobs. What if and this is important for people on a budget so this would benefit many jobs that have clerical workers or call center employees or other organizations that have a large workforce that isn’t highly paid yet need to follow some basic dress codes, or even the ambiguous ones like “business casual” or business professional”?  And there are many companies and organizations that could benefit from offering employees a work relationship with large department stores. This gives the employee a broad choice of clothes within the framework of what is needed for work since department stores tend to have multiple departments to cater to different age groups and styles.

Management of companies or organizations could work with the buying departments and give some general guidance of what works, or if “business casual” what doesn’t work and these choices would be available for something akin to employee discounts etc and could include sale items and clearance. I am sure some negotiations would produce something beneficial to the store and to the organization.

Yes, I know there are companies that offer discounts to certain places as part of their employee benefits package, however, this could be very specific and helps two groups of workers. Retail employees keep their jobs since there is consistent business and the people working get help with their budget by having access to nice clothes at a reasonable price. You may say, why go to the bother when the working employees can shop at discount stores, well, there is nothing to preclude them from doing that. They just get much better and extensive choices. Also, some companies or non-profit organizations require some of their employees to dress well and that can be expensive. This would help those people.

Just a thought, an idea, to ponder as we work on saving jobs and help people on a budget. Another benefit might be any clothing manufacture in the United States could sell directly via online at a discount to the employees also since this would be another source of jobs that are kept here. And yes, I know there are not that many American jobs in this sector anymore, however, with some tax incentives and some business maybe we could bring back or create some. 

Overall, we need to create jobs that have better wages for people to make a decent living, yet having general service work helps young people, or people needing a second job, or maybe retired people looking for second income or something to do. Maintaining a retail sales force is a great way to preserve these jobs.