Is the rise of robots a threat to retail workers or a development to be welcomed - Jayne Dowle

In its middle there’s a silver canister with what suspiciously looks like an eye. Presumably this thing is there as a deterrent to shoplifters and to keep watch over the shelves – no-one in the store seemed to have more details. So far, we haven’t seen it move, but presumably it can be shifted.

The presence of this retail robot reminds us that the simple act of nipping out for a bit of shopping is rapidly turning into a head-on collision with technology and AI. It’s not enough for the self-service tills to film us as we swipe our tins of beans, now we’re being watched by a silent store detective.

Obviously, retail staff need all the help they can get to tackle the plague of shoplifting infecting our High Streets. As the cost of living crisis bites and vulnerable people end up so desperate - through poverty, benefit cuts, addictions, poor mental health or a combination of the above- that they will steal anything, shops and services have had to ramp up security.

Early in December, I was in a pound shop when two members of staff ran out, giving chase to a young man running up the road with an armful of advent calendars. I’d seen him already and thought – innocently - that he must have been buying so many calendars for a charity or something.

It saddens me that human nature finds itself in such a wretched state. One friend reminds me that when she was waiting for a recent optician appointment a “lowlife” (her word) came in and started stealing all the spectacles. Perhaps he didn’t realise that display models have clear lenses.

Seriously though, any job that involves selling goods now comes with a severe element of risk. My 21-year-old son worked in a small local branch of another Yorkshire-based supermarket for three years before switching careers. Sad to say, I’ve had the horrible experience of watching him wrestle a shoplifter to the ground.

When I watched this happen before me, it was a visceral reminder of the frontline danger retail staff find themselves in every time they clock on. Robots then, perhaps don’t sound so far-fetched; they can’t die from a stab wound.

In November, Lidl claimed it would be the first UK supermarket to roll out body cameras for workers in every store, although they won’t be required for every staff member. Lidl GB, with more than 960 stores in the UK, said it will invest £2m to ensure each shop has the new security measures by spring 2024.

Some supermarket chains, including Morrisons and Sainsbury’s, have also introduced security gates, which require proof of purchase from shoppers to leave the store. If nothing is bought, the shopper has to ask a security guard to let them out; perhaps security guards will all be robots soon.

Is such technology really the answer though? I am entirely in favour of protecting staff – and shoppers – and of course, respect the retailers’ right to make a profit, but my fear is that we are starting to take irreversible steps down a very slippery slope.In saving profits and protecting stock, large employers look set to haemorrhage even more workers. Just under three million people in the UK were employed in retail in the second quarter of 2022, according to a survey from industry body the British Retail Consortium, 63,000 lower than a year earlier.

When last Christmas was over, the Centre for Retail Research reported a loss of almost 15,000 retail jobs in January 2023, with the majority at large retailers such as Tesco and Asda.

The law-abiding, careful shopper is coming way down the priority list as retailers look to protect their assets. Thanks to AI-controlled ‘dynamic pricing’ the days of pocketing a sell-by-date yellow stickered food item when fresh food is cleared in the evenings could be coming to an end. Under dynamic pricing, stock is automatically re-priced through digital price tags on the shelves or high-tech stickers attached to the product itself.

These prices are automatically, and wirelessly, updated by AI when a particular item approaches its sell-by-date, with levels of stock being controlled too. No more yellow stickers are a definite possibility, so there goes yet another job – that of the person patrolling the aisles with the sticker gun.