RELIABLE BACKGROUND SCREENING INDUSTRY NEWS AND ARTICLES
Industry news, helpful tips, and valuable insight from the Reliable Background Screening Team.
Employee Theft and Workplace Fraud Statistics 2026: What Occupational Fraud Costs Employers
The typical organization loses about 5 percent of its revenue to occupational fraud every year, with a median loss of roughly $145,000 per case and an average approaching $1.7 million. The uncomfortable truth for employers: most of the people committing that fraud are trusted, long-tenured employees who passed their background check, which is exactly why screening has to be paired with monitoring and controls. Key Takeaways Organizations lose an estimated 5 percent of annual revenue to occupational fraud, a figure the ACFE calls conservative. The median fraud loss is about $145,000 per case; the average is roughly $1.7 million, with total identified [...]
Background Check Industry Statistics 2026
Background screening is now nearly universal: roughly 93 to 96 percent of U.S. employers run some form of check before hiring, inside a U.S. services market worth about $3.2 billion in 2026. Yet as adoption plateaus, the risk it guards against is climbing, with candidate discrepancies, synthetic identities, and AI-assisted resume fraud all trending sharply upward. Key Takeaways The U.S. background check services industry is valued at about $3.2 billion in 2026 across roughly 1,597 businesses, per IBISWorld, a mature market where scale matters less than compliance expertise and accuracy. Screening is nearly universal: 93 to 96 percent of U.S. employers conduct [...]
Mid-Year Supplier Review: Is Your Background Screening Provider Truly Reducing Your Risk?
For many organizations, the middle of the year is the perfect time to evaluate suppliers. Companies routinely review insurance carriers, payroll providers, HR technology, accounting firms, and other critical business partners to ensure they continue to deliver value. One supplier that is often overlooked, however, is their background screening provider. Many organizations assume that all background screening companies provide the same information, use the same processes, and deliver similar levels of service. In reality, there are many times significant differences in quality, compliance, customer support, search methodology, and overall risk mitigation. A background check should never be viewed as a commodity as [...]
AI in Background Screening & Onboarding: 5 Tips to Reduce Compliance Risk and Improve Screening Decisions for Employees, Tenants, Volunteers, Contractors, Franchisees and Members
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how organizations recruit, screen, and onboard employees, volunteers, contractors, vendors, tenants, franchisees and prospective members. Recent industry estimates indicate that approximately 87% of organizations now use AI-driven tools in some aspects of hiring or onboarding, a figure that has more than doubled over the past two years. Unfortunately, AI adoption is advancing much faster than most organizations' compliance framework. Studies suggest that fewer than half of organizations using AI have implemented formal risk management frameworks, leaving many organizations vulnerable to compliance, legal, and reputational risks. While AI offers significant efficiency gains, it should never replace sound [...]
