Jobseekers hoping that a new year – and a new decade – will bring better luck in finding work can finally celebrate some potentially good news regarding future employment trends.

According to the study “2010 Job Forecast” by online jobs website CareerBuilder.com, more employers expect to hire new workers in 2010 than in 2009. The survey of more than 2,700 hiring managers and human resource professionals in November found that 20 percent – one in five – said they would hire full-time, permanent workers in 2010 compared to 14 percent of employers who said they planned to do the same in 2009.

In addition, the study revealed only 9 percent of employers said they intended to cut jobs next year, compared to 16 percent who said they would fire workers in 2009. A majority of respondents, 61 percent, predicted staffing levels would remain the same.

Regionally, the study found employers in the West planned to increase hiring more in 2010 than the other regions of the country, as nearly one-quarter – 24 percent – intended to add full-time workers compared to 21 percent in the Northeast, 20 percent in the South, and 16 percent in the Midwest.

With regard to hiring by industries, the study showed 32 percent of information technology (IT), 27 percent of manufacturing, and 23 percent of financial services employers plan to add full-time, permanent employees in 2010, followed by employers in professional and business services (22 percent), sales (21 percent), healthcare (21 percent), transportation (18 percent), and retail (15 percent).

As for which job types employers planned to hire for in 2010, one-third (33 percent) of those surveyed answered technology, followed by customer service (28 percent), sales people (23 percent), research/development (18 percent), business development (17 percent), accounting/finance (15 percent), and marketing (14 percent).

No matter what region, industry, or job type, most jobseekers will have to undergo a pre-employment background check. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 80 percent of employers perform some type of pre-employment background check on prospective employees. In order to make sure that the information contained in their background checks is current, accurate, and secure, many jobseekers are performing “personal” background checks on themselves so they won’t lose out on any job opportunity because of mistakes and inaccuracies in their personal information.

MyBackgroundCheck.com – the nation’s leading supplier of applicant-supplied background checks – offers “personal” background check services to individuals to use as jobseekers to gain employment in a tough economy. For more information on how personal background checks can help jobseekers find work, please visit www.mybackgroundcheck.com, email info@mybackgroundcheck.com, or call 800-300-1821.

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A team of experts has come up with a “Top 10” list of identity theft predictions for 2010, and the immediate future does not look any brighter for victims of the crime.

According to a press release, the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) – a non-profit organization established to support identity theft victims and broaden public awareness of the crime of identity theft – and nationally recognized identity theft expert Robert Siciliano have teamed up to create a Top 10 list of identity theft predictions for 2010 and beyond.

1. The recession will lead to more identity theft scams, since identity thieves always find a way to use difficult economic times to their advantage.
2. Identity thieves will take advantage of high unemployment rates by tricking jobseekers with fake job listings and work-at-home scams.
3. The number of individuals with no criminal history who will begin to explore the crime of identity theft for financial gain will increase.
4. Child identity theft and identity theft cases perpetrated by people close to the victim – such as friends, roommates, and fellow workers – will increase in tough economic times.
5. Medical identity theft will rise as high unemployment and high medical insurance costs cause uninsured people to use the coverage of friends, relatives, or strangers to get medical care.
6. Insider identity theft will increase due to the failure to secure workplaces to prevent identity thieves from gaining access to personal information contained in databases or paper files.
7. Individuals will fall victim to Governmental identity theft after they apply for government assistance and benefits using their own Social Security Numbers (SSNs), leading to complications with government institutions.
8. Criminal identity theft – when one individual uses another’s personal information to avoid having a criminal record – will grow, leading to loss of employment and benefits, and to arrests of identity theft victims.
9. Social media identity theft will increase, allowing identity thieves hack social media accounts with “phishing” to create infected links or false pages to steal personal information from users and their “friends.”
10. Over the next two years, identity theft crimes – and the  number of victims – will increase unless changes are made in information security, especially to the current system of identification that has few safeguards to protect consumers.

While these predictions show how identity theft could get even worse, the crime is already a problem for millions of people. According to Javelin Strategy & Research, identity theft and fraud increased 22 percent in 2008, affecting nearly ten million Americans. And those numbers are expected to get worse before they get better.

To help protect against identity theft, MyBackgroundCheck.com – the nation's leading provider of applicant-supplied background checks – offers individuals “personal” background check services to help keep personal information current, accurate, and secure. For more information about personal background checks, visit www.mybackgroundcheck.com, email info@mybackgroundcheck.com, or call 1-800-503-2364. Follow MyBackgroundCheck.com on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MyBackgroundChk.

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Read the full news release: At Least 1-in-29 College Students Have Criminal Records

Students with criminal records could be sitting in every classroom at colleges and universities in the United States, according to a new report.

A nationwide study by MyBackgroundCheck.com, a leading supplier of criminal background checks for students and faculty members, revealed that approximately one out of every 29 college students across the nation had some type of previous criminal record, and the actual cases of crime may be higher since juvenile records are not reportable or included in the study.

The study of 13,859 students in 125 universities, career colleges, nursing schools, and other educational institutions found a variety of convictions from across the nation. The convictions uncovered in this study did not include juvenile records – which are not accessible to the public in most situations – and were organized into the following categories and percentages:

• Child Molestation (2.4%);
• Sexual Abuse (5.2%);
• Assault (4%);
• Drug Possession (7.4%);
• Theft (8.8%);
• Fraud (2.7%);
• Driving Violations (60%); and
• Disorderly Conduct (9.5%).

“Parents sending children off to colleges and universities should closely view the background screening policies of those educational institutions,” stated Robert Mather, CEO of MyBackgroundCheck.com. “The days of secrecy surrounding previous criminal activity in a university are gone,” Mather continued. “In today’s world, parents, faculty, and students wish to be educated about the criminal convictions of their roommates, students, or instructors and, at the least, engage in conversation surrounding the facts, beginning with the question: Is there a criminal in the classroom?”

MyBackgroundCheck.com is one of the largest providers of “student-supplied” background check services to colleges and universities to use for their students, faculty members, contractors, and vendors. To learn more about student background checks, visit http://www.mybackgroundcheck.com/Students. Universities can find out more about MyBackgroundCheck.com's no-cost nationwide program by visiting http://www.mybackgroundcheck.com/Business/ClinicalDirectors.aspx.

Read the full news release: At Least 1-in-29 College Students Have Criminal Records

Follow MyBackgroundCheck.com on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MyBackgroundChk.

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While many identity theft cases have been reported on this website during the past year, there are a few stories that rise above the others in terms of uniqueness and how they impacted the ongoing debate on how to combat identity theft. Here are five interesting identity theft stories from 2009:

• May 2009: As if finding work in tough economic times wasn’t already hard enough, this story from WHAS-TV Channel 11 in Louisville, Kentucky showed how a jobseeker named Michael Anderson discovered first-hand how identity theft can turn the dream of landing a job into a nightmare. Unfortunately for Anderson, another man with the same name, date of birth, and social security number kept showing up when potential employers ran pre-employment criminal background checks – and this OTHER Michael Anderson had an extensive criminal record that included indecent behavior with a juvenile and assault. As a result, no one would hire him.
• July 2009: In what has to be one of the longest cases of identity theft on record, the Associated Press (AP) reported the shocking story of Tom Lesh, 66, of Coos Bay, Oregon, who had suffered from identity theft for 35 years – in other words, over half of his life. Lesh said he has known since the 1970s that his identity was stolen by a friend of his brother and he had spent, in his words, “thousands of hours” over the decades since repeatedly trying to clear his name and correct his financial records and credit history by writing letters to credit card companies, banks, and government agencies – and even appealing to the alleged identity thief’s mother for help.
• August 2009: In case there are still those who believe identity theft only happens to people with little or no financial acumen when it comes to matters of money, an exclusive report from Newsweek revealed that the nation's chief banker and the man credited by some with saving the world from another Great Depression, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, was just one of the hundreds of victims of a sophisticated identity theft ring that stole over $2 million from consumers and financial institutions across the country, proving identity theft can happen to anyone.
• September 2009: A report by the Seattle Times showed that identity theft victims could strike back at criminals who steal their identities by telling the story of how Michelle McCambridge, a 23-year-old retail store clerk and college student, helped bring down an identity theft ring after a chance face to face meeting with the woman who stole her identity. The fast thinking McCambridge had the store security cameras zoom in on a fake ID the identity thief was presenting with another woman's name, an action which set in motion a federal investigation that ultimately brought down an identity theft ring.
• October 2009: An article on the website for the Lexington, Nebraska newspaper The Lexington Clipper-Herald tells the story of an identity theft victim who ended up in jail twice for a crime he didn't commit, once after being robbed and calling the police for help. Joe Salazar, 38, of Omaha, Nebraska, spent a night in jail after calling the police to report a burglary at his home, and he also spent two weeks in jail – including last Christmas and New Year's Day – after being pulled over for speeding, all because the identity theft victim had an arrest warrant for failing to appear for sentencing in a drug case meant for an identity thief using Salazar's name.

These are just a few of the literally millions of stories about identity theft. According to Javelin Strategy & Research, identity theft and fraud increased 22 percent in 2008, affecting nearly ten million Americans. Overall, approximately 1.8 million more adults fell victim to identity fraud in 2008 as compared to 2007, the first year-over-year increase since Javelin began collecting data in 2004.

To help protect against identity theft, “personal” background checks – where people perform background checks on themselves – can ensure that personal information is current, accurate, and secure. While many background check firms only service businesses, MyBackgroundCheck.com – a pioneer in consumer requested and applicant supplied background checks – offers individuals affordable “personal” background check services. Over one million individuals have purchased background checks through MyBackgroundCheck.com.

For more information about personal background checks, visit www.mybackgroundcheck.com, email info@mybackgroundcheck.com, or call 1-800-503-2364. Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MyBackgroundChk.

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According to a 2009 Facebook ID Probe from Sophos UK that was conducted to see how easily users of social networks give out personal data that could lead to identity theft, more than 40 percent of those in the probe accepted an invitation to be friends with two fictitious users.

Sophos created two female Australian Facebook users – Daisy Feletin (21 and single) and Dinette Stonily (56 and married) – and each sent friend requests to 100 randomly-selected contacts in their age group and then waited to see who would respond.

The findings show Facebook users are more susceptible to identity theft than ever, as over 40 percent of both age groups blindly accepted Facebook “friend requests,” and the younger users were more trusting than older users, 46 percent to 41 percent.

More troubling for the 20-something crowd, 100 percent of them shared email addresses, 89 percent revealed full dates of birth, 74 percent gave college or workplace information, and 50 percent shared home towns – key information that makes identity theft easier to commit.

To avoid identity theft and other online scams, social networking users are advised to not accept friends blindly, learn the privacy settings of social networking sites they join, and assume information revealed on social networking sites will be on the Internet forever.

MyBackgroundCheck.com – a leading provider of consumer requested and applicant supplied “personal” background checks – allows individuals to keep personal information current, accurate, and safe from identity theft. To learn how personal background checks help prevent identity theft, visit www.mybackgroundcheck.com, email info@mybackgroundcheck.com, or call 1-800-503-2364. Follow MyBackgroundCheck.com on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MyBackgroundChk.

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