70+ employee theft statistics for 2025

Internal theft statistics

1. 75% of employees have stolen at least once from their employer. (Source: CalRest.org)
2. An estimated 60% of inventory losses are due to employee theft. (Source: The Schulman Center)
3. Asset misappropriation is the most common cause of employee theft, occurring in around 89% of cases. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
4. Merchandise theft, refund fraud, cash/deposit theft, and passing off merchandise to friends are the top four reported methods of internal theft. (Source: National Retail Security Survey 2023)
5. Dishonest employees are on the rise, with an 18% increase in 2022 compared to 2021. (Source: Jack L Hayes International)
6. 56.9% of retailers say that internal theft has become a bigger threat and priority over the last 5 years. (Source: National Retail Security Survey 2022)
7. 95% of businesses are affected by employee theft. (Shiftbase)
8. 29% of retail shrink loss is caused by internal theft. (Source: National Retail Security Survey 2023)

Employee theft demographics

9. 74% of all employee theft is committed by men. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
10. The median age of a perpetrator is 48. (Source: SMG Security Holdings)
11. Two-thirds of all occupational fraudsters have university degrees or higher. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
12. Of the background checks that were conducted on perpetrators as potential employees, in 84% of the cases, there were no red flags. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)

Top industries for employee theft

13. The top two common sectors for employee theft are banking and financial services and manufacturing. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
14. The industries with the greatest median losses are mining ($550,000), wholesale trade ($361,000), and manufacturing ($267,000). (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
15. In terms of employee theft in government, just under half (47%) of victim government organizations occurred in national government agencies. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
16. At 42%, private companies are the most likely to become victims of employee theft. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)

Costs of employee theft

17. Retail businesses lost $112.1 billion in lost inventory, of which 29% was due to employee theft. (Source: National Retail Security Survey 2023)
18. Employee theft costs are rising at a rate of 15% per year. (Source: Dent Moses)
19. Merchandise, supplies, money, and data are targets of employee theft. (Source: CO—)
20. Businesses lose an estimated 20% of every dollar to workplace theft and fraud. (Source: Deep Sentinel)

Retail theft statistics

21. Employees steal an average of $1,890 from retailers. (Source: New York Times)
22. Only 10.9% of retail theft losses are recovered. (Source: Jack L. Hayes International)
23. Organizations report a shrink rate average of 1.6%. (Source: National Retail Security Survey 2023)
24. Retailers apprehended almost 350,000 shoplifters and dishonest employees in 2022, a 45.6% increase from 2021. (Source: Jack L. Hayes International)
25. 73.1% of retailers had an increase in employee theft apprehensions. (Source: Jack L. Hayes International)
26. On average, retailers found a 26% increase in retail theft incidents. (Source: National Retail Federation 2024)
27. 52% of retailers have seen an increase in e-commerce fraud. (Source: National Retail Security Survey 2023)

Employee fraud statistics

28. Fraud causes companies to lose an estimated 5% of revenue every year. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
29. One-third (32%) of cases occur because companies lack internal controls. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
30. The median fraud case costs a company $145,000. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
31. The average fraud case costs a company $1.7 million. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
32. 43% of cases are reported by tip — most commonly from another employee. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
33. 59% of healthcare data breaches are from insiders. (Source: CDSE)
34. A typical employee theft case lasts 12 months before it’s detected. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
35. Employee fraud cases most commonly occur in these areas: operations, accounting, customer service, executive and upper management, or sales. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
36. Founder and executive employee theft costs a median of $500,000 but only accounts for 19% of cases. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
37. 39% of fraudsters live beyond their means, while 27% have issues with their finances. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
38. Asset misappropriation is the most common type of employee theft and least costly (89% and $120,000 median loss), while financial statement frauds are the least common but most costly (5% and $766,000 median loss). (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
39. 38% of cases involve two or more types of employee fraud, with the most common overlap occurring between asset misappropriation and corruption (35% of cases). (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
40. 42% of fraud cases occur at private companies, while 26% occur at public companies — both having a median loss of $150,000. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
41. Employee fraud cases at small businesses are more likely to involve check and payment tampering and skimming than at larger businesses. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
42. Almost half (41%) of perpetrators try to conceal the crime by creating fraudulent documents. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
43. Employees (77%) are more likely to be terminated for fraud than managers (65%) or owners or executives (53%). (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
44. The most used anti-fraud controls at organizations include: a code of conduct, external audit, internal audit department, and management certification of statements. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
45. The longer an employee works at a company, the more revenue damage they cause in terms of fraud. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)

Embezzlement statistics

46. A quarter of perpetrators had a hand in their company’s operations or accounting. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
47. Median losses for frauds by owners or executives are $459,000 compared to employee’s $60,000. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
48. More than half of perpetrators work at the company for at least 6 years. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
49. 57% of embezzlement and fraud cases are referred to law enforcement, of which 72% result in a conviction. (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)
50. Embezzlement cases involving three or more people ($329,000) cause a greater median loss than those involving just one person ($75,000). (Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024)

Employee time theft

51. Employers lose about 4.5 hours per week per employee to time theft. (Source: Robert Half International)
52. During a standard 8-hour workday, the average worker spends just 4 hours and 12 minutes actively working. (Source: Zippia)
53. 47% of workers admit to surfing the internet at work. (Source: Zippia)
54. Other popular off-task behaviors include social media (47%), texting (44%), and socializing with coworkers (27%). (Source: Zippia)
55. A good productivity percentage is between 70% and 75%. (Source: Clockify)
56. Office employees are productive only about 60% of the time. (Source: BOSTONtec)
57. Buddy punching, one of the most common forms of time theft, affects 75% of US businesses. (Source: The American Payroll Association)

Cyber and data theft statistics

58. The global average cost of a data breach in 2024 is $4.88 million. (Source: IBM)
59. 71% of organizations feel at least moderately vulnerable to insider threats. (Source: Cybersecurity Insiders 2024 Report)
60. 32% of organizations state that the average cost of remediation was $100K to $499K. (Source: Cybersecurity Insiders 2024 Report)
61. 55% of organizations recover from an insider attack within a day, whereas 45% take a week or longer. (Source: Cybersecurity Insiders 2024 Report)
62. 37% of companies find detecting and preventing insider attacks more difficult than dealing with external cyber attacks. And 55% believe the difficulty level is the same. (Source: Cybersecurity Insiders 2024 Report)
63. Insiders are involved in 70% of data breaches in the healthcare sector. (Source: Verizon)
64. Miscellaneous errors, privilege misuse and system intrusion represent 83% of breaches in healthcare. (Source: Verizon)
65. In the financial and insurance sector, 31% of breaches are due to internal actors. (Source: Verizon)
66. 57% of financial services companies revealed their sensitive content was breached five or more times. (Source: Kiteworks)
67. Halting cybercrime is of higher priority for 58.6% of merchants. (Source: National Retail Security Survey 2022)
68. Insider threat incidents have risen 44% over the past two years, with costs per incident at $15.38 million. (Source: 2022 Ponemon Institute Cost of Insider Threats)
69. 18% of insider data theft involves stolen credentials. (Source: 2022 Ponemon Institute Cost of Insider Threats)
70. 67% of companies experience 21 to 40+ cyber incidents in one year. (Source: 2022 Ponemon Institute Cost of Insider Threats)
71. Employee or contractor negligence causes 56% of attacks, while 26% of attacks are criminal or malicious insider attacks. (Source: 2022 Ponemon Institute Cost of Insider Threats)