Benefits March 28, 2007

ADP Background Checks Up 20% in 2006

March 28, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The number of 2006 employment background checks performed by ADP Screening and Selection Services jumped by nearly 20% to 5.8 million, according to the company.
Reported by

That increase was ahead of the 12% jump in such checks between 2004 and 2005 (See ADP: Job Applicant Background Checks up 12% in 2005)

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An ADP news release said that the 2007 report about its 2006 screening business found that 41% of the checks turned about a discrepancy between information from the applicant and the source. That was down from the 49% of 2005 screenings where that was true.

According to the news release, the latest screening report also found that:

  • 5%of the criminal background checks revealed a criminal record in the last seven years.
  • among driving record checks, 35% had one or more violations or convictions while 5% had four or more.
  • 43% of credit report checks showed a judgment, lien or bankruptcy or that the individual had been reported to a collection agency.
  • 8% of the workers’ compensation checks revealed an existing claim.

. For additional statistics please go to www.adphire.com/screeningIndex .

Benefits March 27, 2007

Workers under 35 Not Confident About Retirement Future

March 27, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Retirement plan participants under 35 are less confident they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement than their older counterparts and are slightly less likely to have a well-defined strategy for saving for retirement, a recent survey shows.
Reported by

The survey of more than 2,000 retirement plan participants by the Spectrem Group compared the retirement attitudes, deferral rates, investment decisionmaking and investment choices of those under 35 to that of older workers and also looked at the differences in these areas in terms of gender and income.

On average, younger participants are deferring only 6.3% of their salary into their retirement plans, which is 1.3% lower than older participants. These deferral rates increased as household incomes increased and the average rate is higher for males than females.

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They survey found that 45% of younger workers expect to have enough money to live comfortably in retirement, compared to half of older workers and that females under 35 are more optimistic (51%) than males (38%) in that age group about having sufficient retirement savings. The survey also showed that confidence increases as income increases.

There was no significant difference among younger and older workers in terms of having a well-defined investment strategy; however, those with those participants making $50,000 to $100,000 annually are the most likely (53%) to have a well-defined strategy than the other two income brackets. Within the under 35 segment, 71% of males believe their investment choices will produce a good return compared to 62% of females.

Young participants are more likely (46%) than older workers (35%) to take a higher investment risk in order to earn a higher return and younger male workers are more likely (59%) than their female counterparts to absorb a higher risk. Also, those making under $50,000 a year are the most likely (61%) to want a guaranteed return on their retirement plan money, compared to 31% of workers making over $100,000.

Younger participants are more likely to want advice about in choosing their investments (27%) than those over 35 (20%), and those in the $50,000 and under income bracket are the most likely (37%) to want investment advice.

The report is based on a total of 2,009 telephone interviews with participants. Included in this sample are 400 retirement plan participants from a focused survey who answered questions in regards to communication topics. The sample of participants under the age of 35 totaled 285.

More information about ordering the report is here .

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