Your Next Hire May Not Be Who They Claim & 4 in 10 Managers Have Already Met a Fake
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Checkr surveyed 3,000 U.S. managers who hire, and 86% said their organization dealt with at least one type of hiring fraud in the past year. It was Checkr’s second annual survey, fielded September 11 to 16, and most of the numbers are worse than 2025.
AI shows up throughout the findings. 68% of managers say job seekers are now better at faking their identity with AI than hiring teams are at catching it, up from 62% last year. 67% have suspected a candidate of using AI to misrepresent themselves, up from 59%, and 60% say AI has made virtual interviews harder to trust, up from 51%.
The fakes are reaching the interview stage. 40% of managers have personally interviewed someone who was later revealed to be using a fake identity, up from 31%. 67% have encountered an interview proxy, meaning someone other than the real candidate showed up. 34% confirmed one and another 33% strongly suspected one.
Timing is the weak spot. Only 29% of companies verify identity when someone applies, and 49% wait until after at least one live interview. Most employers also stop checking once the person starts. 63% focus on fraud prevention before the hire, only 6% weigh it most after the hire, and 44% have no formal, written process for verifying identity after someone starts.
Then there is the payroll. 38% of managers suspect a fraudulent employee is on their payroll right now. 58% believe someone at their company is secretly working another full-time job, and 29% have confirmed at least one case. As Checkr puts it, “Identity and fraud prevention can’t end at the offer.”
Companies are responding. 71% of HR teams have had formal fraud training, up from 17% a year ago. Third-party background checks rose from 53% to 62%, and real-time video interviews fell from 55% to 42% as more companies move to in-person rounds. Even so, only 23% of managers are extremely confident their process would catch a fraudulent candidate.
The number I keep coming back to is 28%. More than 1 in 4 managers admit they moved a candidate forward while suspecting dishonesty because the role had to be filled fast. Fraud tools can’t help much when the person doing the hiring decides to look the other way.
The timing data points to the easiest fix. If you confirm who someone is before they ever get on a call, a proxy or a fake identity has a much harder time getting through.
If hiring speed is the pressure that makes your managers cut corners, talk to us about hiring. A staffing partner that screens candidates before they reach your team takes some of that pressure off.
Seasonal Postings Are Up 10%, but Big Retailers Are Betting on Part-Time
Indeed Hiring Lab economist Cory Stahle says seasonal hiring is off to its best start in several years. As of September 30, seasonal job postings on Indeed were up about 10% from a year ago and about 7% above 2019.
The mix is changing. At some of the biggest seasonal employers, mostly retailers, the share of postings labeled seasonal fell from 34% to about 20%, while part-time rose from 38% to 49%. Seasonal jobs usually end after the holidays and part-time jobs often don’t, so Indeed reads this as a sign some employers expect demand to hold up into 2027.
Work is also shifting from the store to the warehouse. Retail made up about two-thirds of seasonal jobs in 2019 and a little over 61% this year, while loading and stocking roles now make up about 9% of seasonal postings, up from 3.5% in 2019. Desktop searches for seasonal and holiday jobs are up 28% from last year, and Indeed points to inflation, energy costs, and a low-hire job market as reasons people want extra income.
The top seasonal titles are seasonal associates, seasonal retail sales associates, and sales associates. Outside retail, customer service reps, unloaders, delivery drivers, and photographers show up too. Indeed’s advice to both sides is to start early, since postings climb most between mid-September and mid-November.
Announced hiring plans tell a softer story: as I covered in September’s layoffs and hiring data, Spirit Halloween and Michaels announced 62,000 combined seasonal hires, down from 100,800 a year earlier. UPS plans 100,000 seasonal hires, as I covered in the Kroger analysis, fewer than in 2024.
The shift inside the big retailers is the part I’d watch. They are labeling fewer jobs seasonal and more jobs part-time, and part-time work can keep going past January, so those employers look like they are planning for business to hold up into next year. The move toward loading and stocking matters for anyone hiring hourly workers. Warehouses and distribution centers hire those workers year-round, so competition for them doesn’t let up after the holidays.
If you want seasonal work, apply this week, because searches are up 28% and I’d expect the better shifts to fill early. If you need hourly workers for peak season or beyond, explore our staffing services before the best candidates are spoken for.
Staffing your team doesn’t have to be hard.
Reach out and see how we can help.
Lockheed Is Adding 100 Machines & 6,000 Jobs at the Same Time
Lockheed Martin announced plans to create 6,000 jobs across the U.S., including 2,000 in Texas, as it builds munitions faster. Most of the plan centers on its Grand Prairie, Texas, factory, where Lockheed is investing $300 million to grow the site to more than 735,000 square feet. The expansion includes 100,000 square feet of new space and 85,000 square feet of offices converted to factory floor.
Automation is a big part of it. Hadrian will install a 24-machine automated machining cell at Grand Prairie, operated by Lockheed’s own production workforce and expected to be operational in early 2027. Lockheed has installed more than 30 additional high-precision machines so far and expects nearly 100 by the end of 2026.
About 800 production employees work at Grand Prairie today, and the plant made 250,000 parts in 2025. It makes parts for missile programs including PAC-3 MSE, THAAD, PrSM, and JATM, and ships them to final assembly sites in Camden, Arkansas, and Troy, Alabama. The project is part of an $8 billion to $9 billion plan through 2030 to modernize or expand more than 20 U.S. facilities.
Michael P. Duffey, Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment, said, “Today in Grand Prairie, American industry is answering the call to support our warfighters.” The release is Lockheed’s own announcement. It doesn’t say when the 6,000 jobs will be filled or what kinds of roles they will be.
Put two numbers from the release side by side. Grand Prairie has about 800 production workers today, and Lockheed is adding nearly 100 advanced machines there this year plus a 24-machine cell next year. The company is spending heavily on automation and still says it needs 6,000 more people nationwide.
In a factory like this, automation changes what workers do. Someone has to program the machines, set them up, keep them operating, and inspect every part that comes off the line. The roles point to CNC machinists, manufacturing engineers, maintenance techs, and quality inspectors, and good ones are hard to hire in most markets.
Defense work narrows the pool further, because many of these roles come with citizenship or clearance requirements. If you’re a machinist or manufacturing tech in Texas, Arkansas, or Alabama, your bargaining position just improved. If you hire skilled trades in Dallas-Fort Worth, expect more competition for the same people. The release gives no timeline, so I’ll believe the 6,000 number when the job postings show up.
Jobless Claims Sit Near a 12-Month Low & Fewer People Are Collecting
The Labor Department’s weekly count barely moved. New claims for the week ending October 10 were 199,000, up 1,000 from the week before. The 4-week average rose 250 to 198,500, and last week’s 198,250 is the lowest in the past 12 months, with this week’s the second lowest.
Fewer people are still collecting benefits. Continuing claims for the week ending October 3 fell 4,000 to 1,710,000, and their 4-week average of 1,708,750 is the lowest of the past year. Both numbers are well below a year ago: 199,000 initial claims against 222,000, and 1,710,000 continuing claims against 1,928,000, which is 218,000 fewer people collecting. The insured unemployment rate held at 1.1%, down from 1.3% a year ago.
For the week ending October 3, California was up 4,295 with no explanation, and Illinois was up 1,108, citing layoffs in construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, and manufacturing. New Jersey had the highest insured unemployment rate in the country at 2.0%, for the week ending September 26.
Layoffs are about as low as they’ve been all year. The 4-week average for new claims is almost exactly where it was last week, and the 4-week average for continuing claims just hit its lowest point in 12 months. Falling continuing claims can mean people are landing jobs faster or that their benefits are running out, and this report can’t tell you which. Job growth has been weak too, with BLS counting just 29,000 jobs added in September, as I covered in the September jobs report analysis.
My read is that employers are holding on to the people they have. If you have a job, your odds of losing it look low right now. The downside is that fewer people leave open seats behind, which makes the search harder for anyone who’s looking. If you’re searching, see what’s open right now.
