NRF Projects 4.4% Retail Sales Growth, Signaling Stronger Hiring Outlook for Grocery Crews

The National Retail Federation projected last week that U.S. core retail sales will grow 4.4% in 2026 over 2025, reaching $5.6 trillion, a pace NRF chief economist Mark Mathews called a "stronger than normal year" relative to the 3.6% average annual growth recorded over the prior decade, excluding the pandemic period.

Mathews released the forecast on March 19 through NRF's Retail Economic Perspective and expanded on it during a virtual event earlier in the week. The projection, built in partnership with Oxford Economics, covers core retail sales only: NRF's definition excludes auto dealers, gas stations and restaurants, meaning grocery operators sit squarely inside the measured universe.

For context, NRF's 2025 forecast had pegged growth at 2.7% to 3.7%, targeting a range of $5.42 to $5.48 trillion. The Commerce Department reported last month that retail sales in 2025 ultimately rose 3.7% year over year, landing at the top end of that range. The 2026 forecast of 4.4% clears both the prior year's outcome and the long-run average by a meaningful margin.

NRF identified several forces expected to drive that acceleration. Consumer spending, which Mathews described as a key economic bright spot during a "bit up and down" 2025, is projected to remain resilient in 2026. Tax cuts from the Working Families Tax Cut Act and higher tax refunds are expected to put more money into household budgets, with inflation anticipated to ease meaningfully in the third quarter.

Mathews was careful to frame the inflation picture precisely. "While we do expect inflation to remain above the Fed's target for the year, we also expect goods inflation will remain in a slightly lower band, meaning that a significant proportion of NRF's forecasted growth will actually be real growth, and not just an inflation-induced rise in spending," he said.

That distinction matters for grocery operators. Real volume growth, rather than price-driven sales inflation, is what translates into more transactions, more foot traffic and, ultimately, more hours needed on the floor.

The forecast carries one significant distributional caveat: Mathews noted that anticipated spending gains will not be uniform across income groups. Consumer bifurcation means higher-income households are expected to drive the bulk of growth in 2026, leaving operators whose shopper base skews toward middle- and lower-income households with a more complicated picture.

NRF also declined to incorporate the potential impact of the U.S. and Israel's war with Iran into its model, citing "too much uncertainty." Mathews said the group "will continue to assess potential impacts and issue a re-forecast if circumstances dictate so," leaving open the possibility that the $5.6 trillion projection could be revised before the year is out.

RetailTouchpoints framed the NRF forecast in March as material to front-line retail and grocery operators, Trader Joe's among them. The specific operational implications for grocery chains, including any effects on crew scheduling, hiring volumes or labor deployment, were not detailed in NRF's published forecast. What the numbers do establish is the macro backdrop: if sales growth tracks at 4.4%, the demand for staffed registers and stocked shelves will follow.