John Lewis boss: Shoplifting up over 20 per cent due to cost of living pressures
The boss of John Lewis said today that shoplifting has increased over 20 per cent across the high street over the past year blaming the cost of living crisis for the rise in the crime.
Speaking to the BBC on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show, boss Sharon White said she was surprised to not have heard more politicians talk about crime in relation to the cost of living crisis.
“The John Lewis Partnership, we’re a big retailer, 74,000 partners or employees, one of the big issues for them is partner safety,” she said.
“Shoplifting has gone up 26 per cent in the last year,” she said. “It’s a crisis that is hiding in plain sight.”
She said politicians should not forget about issues of crime and safety, “particularly as gangs and shoplifters have become much bolder, to be frank, given some of the cost of living pressures.”
White also repeated the promise that the company won’t be changing its partnership model, after it was reported earlier this year that it was considering diluting the structure.
“There was never any question that we were going to change the partnership models,” she said.
White added, however, the company was looking at how to grow the business under its current model without access to external finance.
“The question for us as now as a £12.5bn business is how do we fund the growth that we know is there… but doing that in a creative way that keeps the partnership a partnership,” she said.
Pushed to give assurance, she said: “I can give a 100 per cent guarantee that the partnership will always be a partnership.”