Retail Salaries, Bonus Payouts Increasing: ICSC

reprints


A new survey from the International Council of Shopping Centers shows that retail real estate salaries and cash-bonus payouts are increasing, with a majority of firms anticipating new hiring and better performance in fiscal year 2013.

New York Times SquareMedian retail real estate salaries in 2013 are trending 3 percent higher than last year, according to the ICSC’s fifth annual North American Retail Real Estate Compensation Survey, which was based on data from 92 companies and 100 positions, ranging from executive to junior-level.

It’s the same gain seen in 2012, and the ICSC expects it to continue, along with a number of other positive signs in the market.

“The latest industry survey found a healthy 3 percent gain in the pace of compensation for 2013 and an expected continuation of that pace into 2014,” said Michael Niemira, chief economist and vice president of research for ICSC, in a statement.

“The retail real estate industry is finally operating on all cylinders with strong leasing prospects, low supply of space, improving rent and cyclically-high net operating income.”

Jeremy Banoff, senior managing director of FPL Associates, which collected and compiled the data, noted that 70 percent of participants expect to see an increase in the size of their overall employee headcount in 2013, in line with what he called a current “healthy pace of hiring.”

In addition, 38 percent of participants reported paying out a greater amount of cash bonus payouts this year than last year, while just 12 percent reported decreases. And, nearly four-fifths of companies expect fiscal year 2013’s overall performance to be stronger than last year’s, which “suggests a healthy and competitive environment across the retail real estate industry,” he added.

The full 2013 compensation study covers a variety of compensation program design topics, benefits/perquisites and individual compensation data, including base salary, annual incentives and long-term awards for 100 retail real estate positions, spanning accounting to executive management to property operations.