According to KPMG’s US Background Screening Industry (Update April 08), “Demand for specialized or “niche” background screening products such as international background screening is expected to continue at accelerated rates despite a difficult macroeconomic environment.”

The footprint of global organizations continues to expand across the globe. From call center employees in India, to sales agents in Europe, and software developers in China and Eastern Europe, the diversity of their workforce continues to expand. Global organizations are realizing it is no longer adequate to just conduct background checks just in the United States. Along with that comes the ever-increasing complexity and need to verify the background of employees who come from, and could be domiciled, in many countries. Collecting and processing pre-employment background information regardless of the employee’s country of origin, or domicile, is now a standard practice for every major corporation.  The International Background Screening Services (IBSS) market is growing rapidly with all the typical challenges of fragmentation and inefficiency.

Factors ISS Sees That Are Driving International Trends and Demands

From our experience macroeconomics, globalization (including outsource global staffing trends), perceived security risks, technology, local regulatory provisions such as data privacy, human rights, and employment issues all drive the majority of IBSS trends. The complexity and the constantly changing international regulatory climate is also forcing a consolidation of the industry and encouraging strategic partnerships between large background screening companies with niche firms that specialize in International Research.

Global Background Screening Outlook

Our predictions for the global employee screening market in 2009 and beyond are:

• Increased reliance from G2000 companies on global service delivery models;
• Overseas Data Privacy, compliance with host country employment issues, and data security will become ever more important to global customers;
• Continued increased demand for service to Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America as clients become more confident about doing business in places such as Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, China, and Argentina;
• The outcome of the 2008 U.S. Presidential elections may lead to a revival of anti-outsourcing sentiment in the United States; and finally
• Foreign juristictions will increase the scrutiny of data gathering and hiring practices of multinationals and increase their prosecution efforts against background screening companies who do not strictly adhere to local laws and regularions while serving their clients