A recent report on the results of employee background checks over the past year reveal that 11.8% of applicants checked have a confirmed criminal record.
That’s according to screening company EMPS which has just released its Annual Screening Report Findings for 2015.
The report further reveals that 21% of those with a criminal record have a theft-related conviction, over 35% have more than one criminal record and over 16% have three or more records.
1% of applicants checked in 2015 were listed on the SA Fraud Prevention Service Database. This database is a listing of acts of fraud committed that are generally not prosecuted criminally (application/ CV/ qualification fraud, credit card fraud, credit application fraud, insurance fraud and identity fraud).
Despite the credit amnesty granted to all South Africans in 2014 in an effort to help job applicants increase their chances of getting into the job market, there were still 15% of job applicants with a negative credit listing in 2015, according to the survey.
Over 1% of ID documents screened were either never issued by Home Affairs or belonged to a deceased person.
Of all the qualifications that were submitted for verification in 2015, 15.7% could not be verified. Of these unverified qualifications, 3.48% were confirmed to be fraudulent. The most prevalent fraud related to matric certificates, professional association memberships and trade certificates.
