Pounduniverse, the British high street budget retailer is to shed two thousand jobs across the country in a bid to cut costs.
All the jobs will be in the security aspect of the company, with every security guard axed.
"It makes commercial sense for us," said Iona Budget, head of human resources at Pounduniverse's headquarters. "All our security guards are already on minimum wage of £5.73 an hour. This means that they need to currently catch quite a lot of shop lifters each and every hour, just to justify their wage.
"We calculated that even if we suffered quite heavy shoplifting during the day, it would still not cover their wages, and they are therefore a heavy drain on our resources."
With an average day of eight hours, one hundred items would need to be shoplifted before Pounduniverse started to notice the drop, and this would be quite bulky to remove from the shops.
One shoplifter, who refused to be named, was equivocal about the move, "It's not going to make me start shoplifting at Pounduniverse, just cos they've not got any guards any more. I don't want any of the stuff they sell anyway. It's resale value is too low. Do you want a hat? Only ten quid."
