Asda to put more staff on checkouts as self-service reaches limit

Michael Gleeson, Asda’s chief financial officer, said that a threshold had been reached in terms of how many self-checkouts it feels works well.

“I think we have reached a level of self-checkouts and scan and go where we feel that works best for our customers, and we feel we’ve got the balance just about right.

“We have invested additional hours in manned checkouts and that’s been within the existing physical infrastructure [of the stores],” he said.

He added that the move was not about more checkouts but about “more colleagues on checkouts”.

Staff will be added to tills over the rest of the year, said Asda, adding that an increased staff presence was not related to shoplifting.

Last year, shoplifting in England and Wales hit the highest level for 20 years.

Shoplifting offences recorded by police reached 430,000, according to the Office for National Statistics.