Report: Background Checks Increase Nationwide

Workforce Management reports that the background screening industry has seen explosive growth over the last decade. Criminal background checks are becoming nearly universal with 93% of all employers nationwide performing some type of criminality check.

10% of employers report that criminal records lead to adverse affects when making a hiring decision.

71% of employers report that they conduct criminal background checks to protect their organization and reduce risk.

There has been some controversy behind the sudden increase. Employers using criminal background checks to make long lists of applicants smaller, to many, appears to be discriminatory. These employers are essentially using criminal records, traffic violations, or bad credit to make character assumptions, even when there the records are not related to the job at hand.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a claim that employers rejecting job applicants based on their credit history and criminal offenses were exclusionary practices and are not indicative of employee performance.

In an online poll, 73% of nearly 2,500 voters agreed that the practice is indeed, discriminatory:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=1655