A weak retail environment this year could mean freeze hiring and even job losses, according to the Australian National Retailers Association (ANRA), citing that latest data points to that dreadful likelihood.

The latest retail data furnished by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Monday showed that consumers minimised their shopping trips in December, resulting to 0.1 per cent dip, seasonally adjusted, on national spending in the month.

The holiday numbers fell short of the 0.5 per cent that the sector was expecting in the month, normally the strongest shopping period in any given year.

That holiday season, according to ANRA chief executive Margy Osmond, took its place as the weakest year for Australian retailers since 1984.

Ms Osmond allowed that sales spikes were indeed seen during the Christmas month, with the ABS saying that 3.0 per cent of sales improvement was recorded in December as against to the sector's performance in the previous year.

The gain, however, was mostly concentrated on food purchases, which only highlighted the pressures and challenges confronted by retailers in the past year, the ANRA chief said.

And there is no immediate reprieve for the industry as the first quarter of 2012 is also expected to deliver weak results, with experts affirming that Australians will be mostly preoccupied on settling their debts and there be little to spare for extra purchases.

"I think this is going to be another challenging year for the retail sector off a not particularly jolly Christmas," Ms Osmond was quoted by the Australian Associated Press (AAP) as saying.

She also warned that if the dismal trend continues "we're now starting to look at some very dangerous territory in terms of retailers having to close their doors and perhaps a significant loss of jobs."

At present, the sector maintains a workforce of 1.2 million employees, making it as the largest private employer in Australia, Ms Osmond said.

A big number of those workers will lose their job unless consumer spending picks up, which ANRA said could be boosted by some policy tweaks coming from the country's central bank.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) imposed two rate cut backs on the last two months of 2011 and it would not hurt the general economy if another reduction will be implemented this February, ANRA said.

"We'd like the see the RBA take it down a notch and hopefully provide stimulus to the economy outside of the resources sector and we hope that that provides a boost to consumer spending," ANRA told AAP.

And hopefully, Ms Osmond noted, banks will decide to pass on the cuts to prod consumers that spending a bit more would not hurt their finances.

"Banks (need to) understand that we live in a different world now and if we're going to get consumers to spend at the level we need, they need to pass that rate on," Ms Osmond stressed.