48% of Retail Workers Faced Customer Abuse in the Past Year

Nearly half of frontline retail workers—48%—experienced customer abuse in the past 12 months, and 27% have skipped specific shifts to stay safe, according to a new survey of US and UK workers commissioned by Halos, a workplace-safety technology company.

The survey, published in Halos's 2026 Frontline Worker Safety Report, breaks the abuse into four categories. Verbal abuse, including shouting or swearing, was the most common at 34%. Threats or intimidation followed at 17%. Discriminatory comments or abuse hit 16%. Physical aggression reached 10%.

Retail Brew reviewed the full questionnaire and detailed results tables that Halos shared ahead of the report's publication.

What do retail workers actually want?

The survey asked workers which measures would improve their safety, and the answers point to enforcement rather than training. The top choice, at 52%, was clear consequences for abusive customers—removing or banning them from stores. The second choice, at 44%, was visible backing from management when associates enforce policies or refuse service.

In other words, workers are not asking for new scripts. They are asking managers to stand behind the policies that already exist.

How large is the problem?

The Halos numbers fit a pattern documented elsewhere. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union reported that 57% of respondents to its member survey had experienced verbal harassment or intimidating conduct from a customer, coworker, or manager in the previous year.

A 2025 Harris Poll survey for security-equipment company Verkada and the Loss Prevention Research Council found that 35% of retail workers felt unsafe at work, up from 27% in 2024. That is an eight-point jump in a single year.

The same Verkada-Harris survey found 61% of retail workers believed their employers placed a higher priority on inventory safety than worker safety. For context, that means more workers think their company protects merchandise better than it protects them.

Who paid for the research?

Halos has a commercial stake in these findings. The company sells body-worn cameras for frontline workers, so a report documenting widespread abuse supports its product line. Company-funded surveys routinely surface problems the sponsor can solve, and readers should weigh that context.

Still, the Halos data does not stand alone. The RWDSU figure and the Verkada-Harris trend line point in the same direction from independent sources, and the direction is upward.

Why does this matter for retailers?

The shift-avoidance figure carries a direct operational cost. When 27% of workers avoid particular shifts over safety concerns, scheduling gets harder, turnover risk rises, and the stores most exposed to abuse are the ones least able to staff reliably.

The worker demands are also cheap to act on relative to new technology. Banning abusive customers and backing associates who refuse service require policy changes and management willpower, not capital spending—though vendors like Halos would argue cameras help enforce both.

With the share of retail workers who feel unsafe climbing from 27% to 35% in a year, retailers that treat worker safety as a loss-prevention afterthought may find the labor market treats them the same way.