Actually. It doesn't hurt the employees at all.
1) My mom worked for the IRS and is an EXPERT in corporate law/tax.
2) I've worked in retail as (a) accounting (b) senior management positions (c) LP and (d) SA
3) I HARDCORE study supply chain management and business.
I know most if not all sides of this game.
Why? Because the budget cuts don't come from shrink most of the time. The products are *insured* and, for many other reasons, are kind of like a TAX BREAK because they are considered "Cost of Goods".
With grocery and beauty ESPECIALLY, the profit margins are already super low. Most of a store's coin is made in OTC/Health and generic products if you're dealing with supermarkets and grocery stores.
If they got a pharmacy, your little lipstick is DEFINITELY a drop in an ocean. Half the time it's miscounted and shrinked anyways because
1) Customers pick up and misplace things ALL THE TIME at ANY given point in time, including when we're doing counts.
2) SAs can be lazy, tired, overworked, etc. and miscount or "count ahead". AKA If there's only one on the shelf, they'll say it's 0 so the reorder can be large enough for the next truck delivery.
3) Customers doing God knows what and contaminating/damaging the items. And other little lifters like you doing who knows what with God knows where.
Budget cuts/Payroll cuts happen for larger reasons like:
1) Larger causes of shrink (miscounted, damages, misshipments after inventory is "counted" by the warehouse)
2) Low amount of employees doing high amounts of workload, "proving" that there isn't a demand for payroll during that shift.
3) Automation (counteracted by expansion, but in conjunction with #2 it's still a net loss of payroll)
4) The corporate philosophy (and documentation) that payroll is an EXPENSE and not a necessity.
If you don't believe #4 check out some tax documents for big corporation or even big non-profits.
Payroll is listed as an expense, and usually is a large one sometimes LARGER than shrink. And because of that it will ALWAYS be a target by corporate.
mid- to low-level retail professionals or
public commentators (and TBH why are you even speaking lol)
don't know is: that "shRiNk caUsEs PayRoLl CuTs" line is miniscule, technically-true bullshit.
#4 is why minimum wage raises are ALWAYS a fight.
#4 is why healthcare, and EMPLOYEE healthcare and benefits are always being rearranged and fought over.
#4 is why automation is more and more attractive to companies
#4 is why budget is always being talked about
#4 is why expenses are always targeted
These companies don't love you.
They love large profit margins and they will cut any expense and feed people any bullshit to do so. When done externally it's called "marketing". When done internally, it's called "management".
Demonstrates a need for live, human workers and even LP if lifting is high enough
is not as high of an expense as people think
Demonstrates, like all consumer activity, that prices are too high for a demand.
Demonstrates, unlike all consumer activity, pinpoints the price/store as the problem for low sales of a product and does that leave room for excuses like low demand or poor packaging
Is the both the best praxis and the purest form of ancap. The people should not be feared, mentally battered, and milked simply because they are of a lower economic class. And if companies don't want a negative consumer response, they should meet the consumer demand: lower ya prices.
Is the oldest crime in humanity, like sex work is the oldest profession. It is up to humanity to accept it as part of itself. And we all should know by now that legality is not equal to morality.
Let this be the one of the final posts of this "debate" because I'm tired of hearing outsiders or snitches shoveling bullshit onto this tag to get some dopamine by shitting on another citizen's hustle and they don't even know shit about retail.
