EmployeeScreenIQ

We all know that background checks are becoming mainstream in today's employment industry, but what kind of statistics are background checks revealing.

According to a recent study from American DataBank, background checks from 2008 to 2009 drudged up some surprising facts about employees in various industries and different sized companies.

When looking at industries, food services and stores have the most employees with criminal hit records at 8 percent, followed by retail at 7 percent, health services at 6 percent, transportation and manufacturing at 5 percent and business services at 4 percent.

Transportation has the highest number of applicants with false information on their resumes at 89 percent. In the manufacturing industry, 10 percent of employees had a negative personal reference.

When it comes to driving records, 39 percent of food service and stores employees had one to three violations, while 8 percent had at least four violations. In the same industry, 51 percent of employees had a credit record with a negative history and, along with manufacturing, had the highest number of employees file for workers compensation at 14 percent.

When comparing companies by size, those with one to 49 employees are considered small businesses, those with 50 to 99 are considered medium-sized businesses and those with 1,000 or more employees are considered large businesses.

Those with 50 to 999 and those with more 1,000 or more employees both had 5 percent of employees with a criminal hit record. Large companies also had 53 percent of employees falsify information on their resumes. Medium-sized companies had 10 percent of employees receive negative personal recommendations.

As for driving records, small businesses had 34 percent of employees with one to three violations on their driving records. Small and medium-sized businesses both had 6 percent of employees with at least four violations on their driving records.

Medium businesses had 47 percent of employees with a negative credit history and 12 percent of small business employees have filed for workers' compensation.

Some other overall statistics found by recent background checks:

• Up to 30 percent of applications contain false material or information
• 40 percent of the information on resumes is misinterpreted
• 45 percent of potential employees have a criminal record, bad driving record, worker's compensation claim or bad credit history
• 40 percent of American drivers have a violation on their driving record and 25 percent have no insurance
• 95 percent of all companies are victims of theft, but only 10 percent discover it
• 30 percent of all business failures are caused by employee theft
• Workplace theft costs employers more than $120 billion each year
• More than 2 million crimes occur in the workplace each year
• Employee fraud estimates cost employers about $20 billion each year
• From 1991 to 1997, sexual harassment has increased by 130 percent, an average of 15 percent each year
• About 2,000,000 workers are victims of violent crimes while on duty, costing employers $4.2 billion
• Employers lose 72 percent of all negligent hiring suits

Labels: Background check