Background checks in 2015 and 2016 revealed that about 18% of all job applicants across eight countries made misstatements about their skills or backgrounds in their applications, according to a report by Crowe Horwath, a U.S.-based accounting and consulting firm. The study found that 69% of discrepancies involved job history, 19% involved educational history, 6% touched on criminal records, and 6% dealt with the candidates’ addresses. The consulting firm concluded that the discrepancies were partly a result of the harshness of the job market and were “largely driven by jobseekers’ temptation” to beat out competing applicants. The 2015-2016 survey was based on the firm’s work for UAE-based clients in considering applicants from nations including India, the Philippines, Nigeria, the U.S., U.K., Pakistan, Egypt, and Oman. “With the UAE’s workforce heavily relying on expatriate labour to sustain the country’s economic growth, pre-employment screening and assessment of foreign job seekers has been thrust into the limelight,” the Crowe Horwath report said. Reporting on the study, the Gulf News said that “skipping a background screening can lead to hiring of wrong employees, which in turn may result in damage to the business and lead to higher costs, employee turnover, and lower morale.”