Texas-Based Grocer H-E-B Tops Indeed.com's List Of Best Retail Employers

Recent years have been difficult for many large retailers, and in many cases these struggles at the corporate level have been passed on to employees in the form of layoffs and declining conditions. But the retail sector still employs 8.1 million people in the United States, accounting for 6 percent of all employment — and many of these jobs are still very desirable, including quite a few in the food and grocery sectors, according to Indeed.com's recent study of the best retail companies to work for in 2017.

The Texas-based grocery chain H-E-B topped the list of best retail employers released on November 21 by the job-hunting site. The privately-held chain, founded in 1905 by Florence Butt and later named after her son Howard Edward Butt, has over 10,000 employees at locations in Texas and northeastern Mexico and was named Retailer of the Year in 2010 by Progressive Grocer magazine. The chain also made headlines in 2015 when they chose to opt out of Texas' new open-carry firearms law by maintaining a ban on brandishing guns in their stores.

Several other grocers — like Costco, Wegmans, Trader Joe's, and Publix — earned spots on Indeed's top 15. Convenience chains like QuikTrip, KwikTrip (yes, they're different), and Wawa figured prominently as well. Coffee giant Starbucks placed 11th.

Indeed.com's site features not only job listings but also millions of employer reviews, which the company's data scientists mined to develop the list. H-E-B earned the top spot due to great ratings on schedule flexibility, job security, upward mobility, compensation, and effective management.

Starbucks' showing is fairly impressive for such a large employer, but of course it's not all wine and roses for the chain's baristas. One barista flipped his lip this summer over the labor-intensive Unicorn Frappucino — and to the chain's credit, they responded to the bad publicity by publicly addressing their baristas' concerns. The chain has also offered legal services for immigrant employees and even developed special sign language aprons for hearing impaired baristas — and you can learn 20 more things you didn't know about Starbucks here.