Shoplifting by Silvia Szarkova

All right- another boring story starting with the words racesion and downturn? Fed up with those words? Maybe, but consider the another side of the card in this game- what about the people loosing jobs in this situation. No doubt, people have to consider each spent penny, but because of the global recession more of them are likely to turn into thieves. According to the annual survey made by Britain based Center for Retail Research released on Tuesday, shoplifting has risen by nearly 6 per cent over the past year, which represent naerly 115 biliion of dollars in business. This is a very scary fact regarding that the rise between years used to be 1.5 per cent. But what scares! the researchers more, is the fact that a growing number of new shoplifters are from middle-class people. According to the annual survey- Global Retail Theft Barometer in charge of director Joshua Bamfield, middle class people usually leave shops with pockets stuffed by French cheeses, quality meats, cosmetics, mobile phones, clothing and other goods they really do not need to keep themselves and their families alive- they simply steal things to maintain the life they can afford no longer. Because of the cutting costs, retailers had to get rid of security and this is what is making the situation even harder. In addition to the usual criminals, you have lots of newcomers to stealing who figure they don't run much risk at getting caught, won't pay much of a price if they are and justify their action on the hard times we're all facing, " says Bamfield. The biggest increase in thieves occured in Nort America- 8.1%, than comes Middle East with 7.5% and Europe 4.7 %. In fact, ! however, shoplifting comes back in form of price lifting- any ! cost inc luded to business- even the loss- is included in the price of merchandise. The best thing to do, says Bamfield, is to invest to better security.

related story (sgx15882): http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599193794400...

by Silvia Szarkova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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