With the holiday shopping season right around the corner, retail merchants will be on watching for shoplifters. But a new report suggests retailers should be looking inside their own stores for employee theft by insiders.

A story on Consumerist.com – leading online resource for consumer-driven advice – cites a CNN article reporting that retail crimes such as shoplifting, employee theft, and fraud jumped almost nine percent (8.8%) in the U.S. over the past year ending in June to total $42.2 billion.

According to the 2009 Global Retail Theft Barometer report from the Center for Retail Research, while shoplifting cost retailers $15 billion during that same period, employee theft cost merchants $18.7 billion while errors and other fraud cost retailers another $6.8 billion. Together, employee theft, errors, and fraud cost U.S. retailers $25.5 billion over twelve months. The report – which surveyed 1,069 large global retail companies and identified trends in 41 countries – also estimated the cost of these crimes to consumers was approximately $435 per family over the past year.

As Consumerist.com points out, when employees are costing employers over one and a half times the cost of shoplifters, employers need to re-think their crime-stopping strategies and start including pre-employment background checks to lessen the impact of employee theft. Using criminal background checks during the hiring process can help prevent employee theft, since criminal background checks are a proven and efficient way of discovering if a prospective employee may have a history of employee theft.

Pre-Employ.com – a leading provider of criminal background checks – can help employers perform thorough and efficient pre-employment background checks on job applicants to help prevent employee theft. Recently ranked in HRO Today magazine’s 2009 Annual “Baker’s Dozen” of Top Outsourced Screening Services, Pre-Employ.com is a nationally recognized leader in pre-employment background checks and human resources outsourcing (HRO). For a brief tour of Pre-Employ.com's background check services and other solutions, visit www.pre-employ.com/tour, visit www.pre-employ.com, email info@pre-employ.com, or call 1-800-300-1821.

tahearn@pre-employ.com

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