In some areas of the nation, the unemployment rate has dropped to nearly 2 percent, leaving personnel managers in retail stores with few options in hiring. The situation has led to an increase in employee thefts, experts report.

• Companies polled in the National Retail Security Survey conducted by the University of Florida attributed 47 percent of all cash and merchandise lost last year to the light fingers of their workers -- up from 41 percent in 1996.

• If the survey results are accurate for the industry as a whole, workers stole $13.3 billion of the $28.1 billion in cash and merchandise that retailers lost last year.

• By comparison, shoplifting accounted for only $9.6 billion -- with the remainder lost to vendor fraud and administrative error.

• An employee who steals will take an average of $1,058 in cash or merchandise in a year -- while a shoplifter will walk away with only $212.

One company which makes employee-surveillance equipment reports that new orders for the technology soared 17 percent last year and have more than doubled over the last five years. Over the same five-year period, sales of technology to catch shoplifters increased just 25 percent.