Supermarkets see thefts arise amid cost of living crisis

Coles and Woolworths are battling a significant rise in store thefts.

Transcript

00:00 You'd have to think the cost of living was playing a huge part in this because I've been

00:05 in the industry for over 40 years and I've not seen this situation occur to this extent.

00:10 And it's a combination of many issues.

00:13 There's a shortage of labour in retail, 36,000 vacancies currently exist, so we've not been

00:18 able to really roster our staff to its stores to its fullest.

00:24 On top of that we've also got shortages in the police force, so that's also creating

00:28 issues.

00:29 So what we're trying to do now is actually work with police, with government, with the

00:33 industry to try and curtail this issue.

00:36 Organised crime has now become also a big problem because an organised crime is, the

00:42 best way to explain that is a professional shoplifter if you want to turn them that way

00:47 because they operate with two or three people, they tend to move in packs and they actually

00:53 steal with the view to on-sell it and that's a concern for us as an industry of course.

00:58 So let's talk about small business which is really, they operate of really thin margins

01:03 so if they have a 2-3% theft issue that severely impacts them greatly.

01:09 If it's bigger than that of course they're forced to close and that's what we're worried

01:13 about.

01:14 Small business can't invest to the way that large business can, they simply just don't

01:18 have the resources.

01:20 So technology is the biggest solution right now because technology costs are coming down

01:26 and labour costs of course are on the rise.

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