More than 348,000 shoplifters and dishonest employees were apprehended in 2019 by 21 large retailers who recovered more than $136 million, says  the 32^nd Annual Retail Theft Survey by Jack L. Hayes International.

“Two-thirds of retailers participating in this survey reported an increase in shrink in 2019, which is reflected in their reported apprehensions and recovery dollars. Overall apprehensions increased 2.44% and recovery dollars from those apprehensions were up 4.88%. Shoplifting apprehensions and recover dollars increased 3.04% and 3.50% respectively, with recovery dollars from shoplifting incidents without an apprehension increasing by 11% (to $176 million) over the prior year,” said Mark R. Doyle, President of Jack L. Hayes International, Inc. “While employee theft apprehensions were down 2.93%, the recovery dollars from those apprehensions increased 7.75%. Overall, retail theft continues to be a serious problem for retailers negatively impacting their bottom-line, and creating more out-of-stocks and higher prices to the consumer.”

Highlights from the annual theft survey include:

• Participants: 21 large retail companies with 18,994 stores and over $510 billion in retail sales (2019).
• Shrink: 66.7% of survey participants reported an increase in shrink in 2019, with 23.8% reporting a decrease in shrink, and another 9.5% reported shrink stayed about the same.
• Apprehensions: 348,036 shoplifters and dishonest employees were apprehended in 2019, up 2.4% from 2018.
• Recovery Dollars: More than $136 million was recovered from apprehended shoplifters and dishonest employees in 2019, up 4.9% from 2018.
• Shoplifter Apprehensions: 315,095 shoplifters were apprehended in 2019, up 3.0% from 2018.
• Shoplifter Recovery Dollars: More than $90 million was recovered from apprehended shoplifters in 2019, an increase of 3.5% from 2018. An additional $176 million was recovered from shoplifters where no apprehension was made, up 11.0% from 2018. Dollar recoveries have increased in 21 of the past 22 years
• Employee Apprehensions: 32,941 dishonest employees were apprehended in 2019, down 2.9% from 2018.
• Employee Recovery Dollars: Over $45 million was recovered from employee apprehensions in 2019, up 7.8% from 2018.
• Employee Case Value: The average Dishonest Employee case value in 2019 was $1,380.62, a substantial increase of 11.0% from 2018.

Employee Theft

According to the survey:

• One out of every 50 employees was apprehended for theft from their employer in 2019. (Based on comparison data of more than 1.6 million employees.)
• Apprehensions: Survey participants apprehended 32,941 dishonest employees in 2019, down 2.9% from 2018. Though not in 2019, employee theft apprehensions have increased in 8 of the past 12 years
• Recoveries: Dollars recovered from dishonest employee apprehensions totaled over $45 million in 2019, up 7.8% from 2018.

Job Applicant Admissions
To further evaluate the severity of employee theft, Hayes International analyzed more than 19,000 randomly selected Applicant Review questionnaires (pre-employment ‘honesty tests’) given by CertiFinder to retail job applicants nationwide.

Of these 19,165 job applicants, 12,283 (64.1%) were rated as “low risk” and 3,700 (19.3%) were rated as “high risk”, due to their admissions of previous wrongdoings, and their attitudes regarding honest and dishonest behavior. (Note: The remaining 3,182 applicants (16.6%) were rated as “moderate risk”.) When comparing the admissions of “high risk” and “low risk” job applicants, it becomes most obvious why some applicants are considered a hiring risk and others are not. For example, listed below are various items on the Applicant Review questionnaire and the percent of high and low risk applicants admitting to each.

Previous theft admissions for the group of 3,700 “high risk” job applicants totaled $256,050, or $69.20 per applicant, while the admissions for the group of 12,283 “low risk” job applicants totaled $71,930, or $5.86 per applicant. It is generally estimated the correct dollar amount for stolen money and merchandise is approximately 10 times the admitted amount. Therefore, based upon admissions made on The Applicant Review questionnaire, the average “high risk” job applicant was responsible for the theft of $692.03, compared to $58.56 for the average “low risk” job applicant.

Shoplifting
For the past several years Loss Prevention professionals have rated shoplifting as their #1 shrink issue. Reasons cited for the increase in shoplifting include: Increased Organized Retail Crime (ORC) activity; Legislation raising Felony Threshold Levels; More “hit n run”/fleeing shoplifters; Less staff on salesfloor creating more opportunities for shoplifters; and Thieves view shoplifting as a high reward, low-risk endeavor. Over the years, Hayes International has witnessed a steady and significant rise in shoplifting. Billions of dollars are stolen every year by shoplifters, negatively impacting retailers’ bottom-line profits, which results in higher prices to the consumer.

• Total retail losses are approximately $50.6 billion annually (based on University of Florida survey)
• Shoplifting is conservatively estimated to account for 30% – 40% of total retail shrink/losses.  (Both University of Florida and Hayes International surveys)
• Average shoplifting case for all types of retail is approximately $50.00  (Based upon data taken from various surveys)

Therefore, Hayes International estimates the following number of theft incidents and dollars lost to shoplifters: