June 2007

One-in-five U.S. workers take office supplies

Is overhead for office supplies getting a bit high. It might be because employees are helping themselves.

Nineteen percent of U.S. workers report they have taken office supplies for personal use in the past year, according to a recent Spherion Workplace Snapshot survey.

Of those who admitted to stealing office supplies, 21 percent felt guilty or regretted the act. In 2006, a similar Spherion survey found that 18 percent of workers reported they had taken office supplies for personal use.

Forty-one percent of workers said the reason they took office supplies for personal use was because they needed them. Meanwhile, 32 percent said they took supplies because their boss or office manager said it was all right to do so, and 15 percent claimed the company would never miss them. The most common types of items taken by workers were pens, pencils, or rulers (25 percent) and paper, post-its, or file folders (19 percent).

Workers earning more than $75,000 annually were the most likely to take office supplies for personal use. Twenty-three percent of these workers admitted to taking office supplies compared to only 11 percent of workers earning $15,000 to $34,999 annually.

Of the age groups surveyed, younger workers were the most likely to take office supplies for personal use, while workers ages 65 and older were the least likely.

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