Supermarket sales fall in March

Super and hypermarkets sales retreated 1.8 percent in March compared with February. In the evaluation of the IBGE, responsible for research, the behavior of the job market impacted the result. "The statistics of IBGE job searches show job losses in the first quarter of the year. And consumption in supermarkets is very influenced by that, "analyzes Isabella Nunes Pereira, Manager of research. To the retail sector as a whole the news is good. Sales rose 0.3% in March, compared with the previous month. Looks little, but it's an encouraging result after the fall of 0.2 percent recorded in February. The data are from IBGE and refer to the so-called restricted retail, which does not include the threads of automobiles and construction materials. Even better is the outcome in relation to March 2017. In this comparison the growth in sales was 6.7 percent, the biggest advance since April 2014. With that, the retail sector ended the first quarter accumulated 3.8% high in sales compared with the same period last year.