Can you be dismissed for theft or dishonesty?

A cashier is accused of pocketing cash from voided sales. A driver's fuel card shows fills on days the truck never left the depot. A sales representative's travel claims include trips that did not happen. A warehouse worker is stopped at the gate with a box of stock in his bag. Each of these employees will usually face a charge of theft, fraud or dishonesty, and many employers treat such charges as an automatic route to dismissal. This guide explains why dishonesty is treated so seriously, why the value involved often does not save the employee, what an employer actually has to prove, how consistency works, and how a criminal case runs alongside the disciplinary process.

This guide is part of our Discipline at work: warnings, hearings and dismissal, which links every guide on the topic.

Why dishonesty is treated so seriously

An employment relationship depends on trust. The employer must be able to rely on the employee not to steal, lie or deceive. When an employee is proven to have done so, the courts have repeatedly accepted that the relationship may be damaged beyond repair, and that dismissal for a first offence can be fair.

The Code of Good Practice: Dismissal, 2025, which replaced Schedule 8 of the Labour Relations Act on 4 September 2025, keeps progressive discipline as the general approach but accepts that serious misconduct can justify dismissal without prior warnings. In deciding whether dismissal is appropriate, it points to the nature and requirements of the job, the seriousness of the misconduct and its effect on the business, whether progressive discipline is likely to work, whether the employee acknowledged the wrongdoing, and personal circumstances such as length of service and disciplinary record. For dishonesty in a position of trust, most of those factors point towards dismissal.

What counts as dishonesty

Theft is only one form. Charges that fall under the same broad heading include:

• Theft, taking the employer's or a customer's property with the intention of keeping it.
• Unauthorised possession or removal of company property, often charged where the employer cannot prove an intention to steal.
• Fraud, such as false overtime, travel or medical claims, fake sick notes or manipulated timesheets.
• Misrepresentation, such as lying about qualifications or a criminal record when applying for the job.
• Lying during an investigation or a hearing, or persuading a colleague to lie.
• Failing to disclose a conflict of interest, for example a side business that supplies your employer.

The charge sheet should say which of these is alleged. If the employer charges theft but can prove only unauthorised possession, a fair chairperson should find you guilty of the lesser offence, if at all. The guide to disciplinary hearings explains how charges and verdicts work.

Does the value matter?

Much less than most people expect. In Miyambo v CCMA, decided in 2010, the Labour Appeal Court considered the dismissal of an employee with more than 25 years' service and a clean record who took scrap metal from a skip to repair his stove. He knew the company sold its scrap. The employer had a consistently applied rule against removing company property without permission. The court upheld the dismissal and rejected a distinction between theft and so-called petty pilfering. Labour courts have taken the same view in many cases since: a small item and a large sum can both destroy trust.

That does not mean the value is irrelevant. It is one factor among several. Where the item was of trivial value, the rule was unclear or not enforced, the employee honestly believed they were allowed to take it, or there is a workplace practice of taking such items, a dismissal is much easier to challenge.

What the employer has to prove

The standard is a balance of probabilities, meaning the employer must show that it is more likely than not that you were dishonest. That is lower than the criminal standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, but it is still a real burden.

Direct evidence is ideal: camera footage, a till record matched to your login, a witness who saw you, or your own admission. Circumstantial evidence can also be enough, if the facts taken together point clearly to you and exclude other reasonable explanations. What is not enough on its own:

• the fact that you were on shift when stock went missing;
• a failed polygraph, which needs expert evidence and other evidence behind it, as the polygraph guide explains;
• an anonymous tip-off nobody is prepared to repeat at the hearing;
• a stock loss that has not been properly counted.

At arbitration, the commissioner decides for themselves whether the dismissal was fair. The Constitutional Court made clear in Sidumo v Rustenburg Platinum Mines, in 2007, that commissioners do not simply defer to the employer's choice of sanction.

There is also the question of trust itself. In Edcon v Pillemer NO, in 2009, the Supreme Court of Appeal held that an employer which relied on a breakdown of trust but led no evidence of it had not justified the dismissal. Later Labour Appeal Court decisions have accepted that where the dishonesty is serious, the breakdown can be inferred from the misconduct itself. Employers are still wise to call a manager to explain why the employee can no longer be trusted in that role.

Consistency

Employees who commit similar misconduct in similar circumstances should receive similar sanctions. If a manager kept her job after taking stock home, and a general worker was dismissed for the same thing in the same month, the worker has a strong argument. Consistency is judged across comparable cases, not mechanically, and the Code accepts that dismissal can still be fair where the misconduct has irreparably damaged the relationship, even if earlier cases were treated more leniently. An employer can also announce that it will treat a type of misconduct more strictly from a given date, as long as it tells employees clearly first.

Defences that come up often

Some explanations succeed more often than others:

• "I had permission" or "everyone does it." This can work if it is true. Evidence that a manager allowed staff to take damaged stock or leftover food, or that the rule was never enforced, goes to whether you knew the conduct was wrong and whether the rule was applied consistently.
• "I meant to pay" or "I was going to bring it back." Arbitrators look at what you actually did. Hiding an item in a bag and walking past the till weakens this explanation considerably.
• "It was an honest mistake." A genuine error in a claim or a stock count is negligence, not dishonesty, and is usually dealt with less severely. The dereliction of duty guide explains that line.

Admitting the wrongdoing early and showing genuine remorse does not guarantee you keep your job, but the Code lists acknowledgement of wrongdoing as a factor in deciding the sanction.

The criminal case runs separately

Theft and fraud are crimes, so the employer may lay a criminal charge with the police as well as discipline you. The two processes are separate:

• The disciplinary case is decided on a balance of probabilities, the criminal case beyond reasonable doubt. An acquittal does not automatically make a dismissal unfair, and a conviction is not needed for a fair dismissal.
• There is no general rule that the disciplinary hearing must wait for the criminal trial. You may ask for a postponement, but you are not entitled to one as of right.
• What you say at the disciplinary hearing could be used in the criminal case. If you face both, take legal advice before giving a detailed statement.

Some employees have a legal duty to report. Section 34 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004 requires a person in a position of authority who knows or reasonably suspects that theft, fraud, extortion or forgery involving R100 000 or more has been committed to report it to the police.

Paying back the loss

Dismissal does not settle what you owe. An employer can claim proven losses through the civil courts. It may deduct an amount from your pay only within the limits of section 34 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, which requires, among other things, a fair procedure and your written agreement. The guide to salary deductions sets out those limits. An employer cannot simply withhold your final pay to cover a loss it has not proved.

Worked example

This example is illustrative. Lerato has worked as a cashier at a Polokwane supermarket for eight years with a clean record. A till audit shows 14 voided sales totalling R2 300 over three weeks, each processed on her login shortly before the customer paid in cash. She is suspended on full pay and charged with theft.

At the hearing, the employer leads the till records, footage showing customers paying cash at her till during the voided transactions, and a manager who explains that cashiers handle cash unsupervised. Lerato says her login may have been used by someone else, but cannot explain why she was the cashier on camera each time. She is dismissed and refers the dispute to the CCMA. The commissioner finds the evidence, though circumstantial, points clearly to her, and that eight years' service does not outweigh deliberate dishonesty in a cash-handling role. The dismissal is upheld.

Change the facts: if the footage did not exist, staff routinely shared logins and the employer had never checked who was at the till, the case would rest only on her login. That would likely not be enough, and the dismissal would be at serious risk of being found unfair.

What to do

1. If you are suspended or charged, ask in writing for the charge sheet and the documents, footage and records the employer will rely on. The guide on suspension pending investigation explains your rights while you are away from work.
2. Write your own account of the events while you remember them, and identify witnesses.
3. Look for inconsistency: others who did the same and kept their jobs.
4. If a criminal charge has been laid, speak to an attorney before giving a detailed statement at the hearing.
5. Prepare carefully, using the guide on preparing for a disciplinary hearing.
6. If you are dismissed, refer the dispute to the CCMA within 30 days of the dismissal, or of the employer's final decision if that is later. An internal appeal does not stop that clock from running.