Almost one-in-ten retail employees have committed a crime against their employer in the last 12 months, according to new research by G4S Secure Solutions (UK).
The most common crime committed by retail employees was consuming produce without paying for it, with over 160,000 workers secretly stealing food.
Over 56,000 retail employees admit to outright theft from their employer in the last 12 months, removing items from a store in which they were working without paying for them.
G4S warns that unsecured vehicle loading bays also prove an attractive target for retail employees looking to remove goods without permission. Its research shows that over 28,000 retail employees have admitted to stealing goods when in transit to a shop, or between a storage area and the shop floor.
Adrian Beck, Head of the Department of Criminology at the University of Leicester, said: “In many respects, staff dishonesty is the 500lb gorilla in the corner of the store – most see it, but few like to discuss it and even fewer are willing to take it on.
“Retail organisations need to focus primarily on the problems which are most controllable within their businesses and internal theft and process failures both fall into this category. The results from this survey once again show the importance of understanding all the threats faced by retailers and highlight the danger of assuming that retail losses are predominantly due to external thieves.”
