Q2 & Mid-Year 2019 Senior LP/AP Jobs Report

Job Market Analysis by Gus Downing,
Publisher & Editor of the D&D Daily
Based on Industry Movement Reported by the Daily
 

Mid-Year 2019 Senior Jobs

146 LP/AP Executives Filled Mid-Year 2019's Senior Positions -
Up 46% Over 2017

56 LP/AP New Pyramid Leaders
86 New Senior Support Leaders Named Mid-Year 2019
Top Jobs - 16 New VPs - 56 New Pyramid Leaders

Top Jobs Mid-Year

Obviously Mark Stinde's Senior Vice President of Asset Protection position at JC Penney is the biggest job so far for 2019.

With Walmart naming Brian Murphy the new Vice President of Global Security and Aviation being the second biggest in Q1.

16 New Vice President Level Positions

With the new externally hired Vice President of Asset Analytics & Insights at CVS Health, John Liesching being the biggest job in Q2 and the third biggest mid-year and Family Dollar's re-staffing the Vice President of Loss Prevention with Tina Sellers being the second biggest job filled in Q2 along with Q1 most notable VP's being Art Lazo at 7-Eleven, Cathy Langley at Rite Aid (both in their first VP roles), Garrett Petraia at Levi Strauss, Ken Peschier at Dollar General, Isaac Whitaker at BJ's, Larry Carroll at 99 Cents Stores, Randy Guaneri at Fresh Value, and Michael Pacewicz at OTG.

Walmart was the busiest retailer in AP job growth with 2 new vice presidents, 5 promotions to Director level, and the creation of 1,000 more AP Host ('More at the Door') positions.

Lowe's was the second busiest with quietly naming and shuffling 9 new Senior Asset Protection executives roles at the corporate and divisional levels shortly after eliminating thirteen hundred store level AP jobs. Lowe's AP developments is the biggest reorganization of 2019 to date. Similar to Macy's reorg. and cuts in 2018. And it will probably end up being the biggest of the year.

Senior LP/AP Positions Continues to Spike 46%
Store Safeness Driving LP/AP Job Market?
Continuing Q1's growth and coupled with a 40% increase in internet posted LP jobs in the first half of 2019, the LP/AP job market is strong and maybe out performing mainstream retail.

While we continue to see store closings dominate the news, the first six months of 2019 was very good for the LP/AP jobs market.

Certainly the Lowe's reorganization eliminated a significant number of positions and the sheer number of store closures is having a negative impact. However, considering that the store closures are dominated by mall based stores the negative impact is minimized due to the specialty store LP structures being so high in store count responsibility.

The Department of Labor probably wouldn't even count those job loses from an academic standpoint.

Obviously with the mass shootings, active shooters, and the continued decriminalization trends making the news weekly, never before has senior management teams been more aware of the issues and concerned with store safeness and it's reflected in this job market. Which also increases the responsibility and expectations on every executive in LP/AP.

Certainly the emphasis remains on shrinkage reduction. However, the priorities have shifted more to store safeness then ever before and not that it wasn't in the past. But in today's retail world store safeness has to be the #1 subject on each and every store visit and interaction.

Q2 Senior Jobs

76 Senior Positions Filled in Q2 - Up 100% Over Q2 2017

4 VP Officer Level Positions Filled
25 Director Level Pyramid Head Positions
47 Senior Support Leaders Named

Q2 was a very strong quarter for LP jobs in the U.S.

4 New Vice Presidents Named - 25 New Directors

At the Vice President level the new Vice President of Asset Analytics & Insights at CVS Health, John Liesching was the biggest new hire. With Family Dollar, bringing back the VP of LP position with Tina Sellers being the second biggest job in Q2.

The Walt Disney Co. named a new VP, Security, Parks & Resorts International with Andrea Cunningham, who returned to Walt Disney after a brief run at Comcast NBC Universal.

Med Men (cannabis grower/distributor/retailer) promoting their first VP, Global Security Operations Chris Rodriguez, Pier 1 promoting James Stark to the VP level, and also of special note is that Walmart named a new VP Global Food Safety Compliance officer Sara Mortimore, an external hire.

Of special note is that three of the five new VP appointments were women.

Of the 25 Director level pyramid heads named, 6 were new positions, 16 were new external hires, 9 promotions, with only one women being promoted or named at the director level at Wireless Vision.

Busiest Retailers

Of the 47 senior support leaders named Home Depot was the busiest retailer in the U.S. with promoting 7 AP executives. Obviously showing the new VP of AP, Scott Glenn, focusing on building his new AP team.

Amazon was the second busiest with 6 senior promotions and continuing to show growth and Walmart was third busiest with 5 promotions to director level.

The top three busiest retailers were certainly not surprising given the new VP at Home Depot and growth at Amazon and virtual size of Walmart.

Comments: After two years of decreasing senior positions we may be seeing Retail America start to stabilize and even grow the LP/AP efforts. Once again, this growth isn't surprising given the market conditions, mass shootings, active shooters, increased violence, and possibly the beginnings of the negative impact of the decriminalization trends on retailers and the increased awareness and concern at corporate offices across America. One thing is definitive and that is Retail America is in fact staffing LP/AP senior jobs more so then in the past five years.

Grapevine, TX: Loss Prevention Officer accused of Sexually Assaulting Shoplifter
Evidence of possible multiple victims
A man who worked as a loss prevention officers for Burlington Coat Factory in Grapevine Mills Mall is facing charges for sexually assaulting a woman he caught shoplifting. Grapevine police arrested 29-year-old Alex Landry at his apartment in Arlington on Thursday. Last month, a woman told police Landry caught her stealing items from Forever 21 in the mall. She said he took to his office inside Burlington Coat Factory, took pictures of her with his phone and coerced her into sex to avoid arrest. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, detectives searched Landry's phone and found pornographic images, as well as websites referring to women offering sexual favors to avoid prosecution. They also found photographs of multiple women in Landry's office. They believe these women could be additional victims, police said. fox4news.com

Across the Pond OOC - Organized Online Crime Growing
UK Cops Take Down 13 Organized Crime Gangs
UK police have warned that organized crime gangs (OCGs) are increasingly turning their attention to online fraud, even as they registered success in taking many of them down this year.

Some 13 OCGs were dismantled in the first half of 2019, double the number of a year ago, according to the latest figures from banking group UK Finance.

This is the work of the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU), a specialized police force funded by the UK finance industry.

In so doing, the unit has apparently helped prevent or disrupt £6.8m - $8.2M U.S. - in fraud in the first six months of 2019, out of an estimated total of £600m - $800M U.S. - since the DCPCU was set up in 2002.

Some 39 fraudsters were convicted following investigations and £330,000 - $397,873 U.S. - in assets seized - also double the amount from the first half of 2018.

Although the DCPCU said it is stepping up its efforts to combat cyber-fraud, by reaching out to other organizations and government, it warned of an influx of organized crime into the space. infosecurity-magazine.com

Lowe's spent billions on share buybacks, zero on severance for laid-off workers
Lowe's is laying off thousands of workers after hiking quarterly dividends and spending billions to repurchase company shares. The home improvement chain isn't offering severance to laid-off workers, some of whom have been at Lowe's for a decade or more. Lowe's last December announced plans to buy back $10 billion worth of stock, according to TrimTabs Investment Research.

Yet when thousands of those workers recently got the boot, they received no notice and no severance. Instead, Lowe's -- a profitable company that spends billions buying back its own stock -- offered the equivalent of two weeks "transition" pay to full-time workers, some with the company more than a decade. Laid-off workers were also invited to re-apply for jobs at Lowe's, though not necessarily for the the same pay. cbsnews.com

Mass Shootings Have Latinos Worried About Being Targets
From Houston to Los Angeles, Latinos have taken to social media to describe being on edge, worrying that even standing in line for a Taco Tuesday special outside a food truck or wearing a Mexican national soccer team jersey might make them a target. The violence has some Hispanics looking over their shoulders, avoiding speaking Spanish in public and seeking out escape routes amid fears they could be next.

"Some people, especially our elders, don't even want to leave the house or speak Spanish."

Although the motive in the Gilroy shooting is unknown, authorities say the El Paso shooting suspect, who is white, confessed to targeting people of Mexican descent. The suspect also is believed to have written an anti-Hispanic rant before gunning down mostly Latino Walmart shoppers with an AK-47-style rifle. edmdigest.com

Fresh Evidence of Auditor Bias Emerges
"Don't Make Me Look Bad: How the Audit Market Penalizes Auditors for Doing Their Job"
That's the title of a study being presented at this week's annual meeting of the American Accounting Association. While it may not portray companies in the most favorable light, at the same time it's merely the latest suggestion that auditors might not necessarily lean toward rendering unbiased opinions on paying clients.

Presumably, audits that provide useful information to users of financial statements should serve to increase the credibility of financial statements and, in turn, increase auditor reputation," the study's authors write.

But the research found exactly the opposite, at least with respect to one essential service auditors are required to perform: flagging material weaknesses in companies' internal controls over financial reporting, a responsibility mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).

"Auditors who issue an ICMW are perceived as less attractive in the audit market," say co-authors Stephen Rowe and Elizabeth Cowle of the University of Arkansas. The perception "disincentivizes auditors from disclosing internal-control information that could make their clients look bad."

Indeed, the disincentive is considerable, judging by the study's comparison of companies that issue ICMWs in a given year with those that don't. cfo.com

Retail store numbers continue to grow
For every retailer closing stores, five retailers are opening stores
With the bankruptcy of Barney's in the news, we're bound to see another round of handwringing in the media over the "retail apocalypse." The actual data paints a very different picture, though. As the just-released "Retail Renaissance - A Growth Story" report from IHL Group points out, retail stores are definitely not going away. According to the report, for each company closing stores, 5.2 are opening stores. For every segment of retail, there are more companies opening stores than closing stores. Even the much-maligned department store category has more brands opening stores than closing them.

The reality is that the wave of store closures seen in recent times is being driven by a handful of companies. Just 16 retailers are responsible for 73 percent of retail store closings so far this year, according to IHL. Retail is a dynamic, fast-changing, highly competitive industry and there are no guarantees of success. Consumer expectations are growing and evolving, and retailers must invest heavily to improve the in-store experience. nrf.com

Retailers respond to tariff delay ahead of holiday season
Trump Moves Sept Deadline to Dec 15th
"While we are still reviewing the details, we are pleased the administration is delaying some tariffs ahead of the holiday season and acknowledging the impact on American consumers. Still, uncertainty for U.S. businesses continues, and tariffs taking effect September 1 will result in higher costs for American families and slow the U.S. economy. During this delay period, we urge the administration to develop an effective strategy to address China's unfair trade practices by working with our allies instead of using unilateral tariffs that cost American jobs and hurt consumers." nrf.com

The running list of 2019 bankruptcy victims

Click on a retailer to learn more about their bankruptcy.