Shoplifting rises over 8% in the USA

Anytime businesses have to absorb a cost, they pass it along to their clients in some form or another.

clipped from www.time.com According to an annual survey released Tuesday, incidents of shoplifting rose by nearly 6% over the past year, representing nearly $115 billion in losses for businesses. And one of the more surprising findings: a growing number of new shoplifters are outwardly reputable, middle-class people who are walking off with French cheeses, quality meats, cosmetics, mobile phones, clothing and other goodies that they feel they need to maintain a quality of life they can no longer afford. "People already feeling, or merely anticipating, the negative impact of recession have taken to stealing ... at the very time retailers also suffering from the downturn have had to cut back on security staff," says Joshua Bamfield, director of the Britain-based Center for Retail Research, which documented the findings in its annual Global Retail Theft Barometer. Though the problem was documented across all regions, the steepest increases occurred in North America (8.1%), the Middle East (7.5%) and Europe (4.7%).