LOS ANGELES, July 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As organizations accelerate adoption of remote work, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, distributed teams, and global hiring models, a new enterprise risk is emerging: employers are increasingly challenged to verify that the person hired is the person doing the work, possesses the skills they claim, and remains accountable for the work being delivered.

New research from GCheck’s “The Rise of the Shadow Workforce” report, based on a survey of 1,500 U.S. workers, found that nearly 3 in 4 employees (71%) have worked with someone who turned out not to be what they claimed professionally, pointing to evidence of a growing “Shadow Workforce” that’s operating beyond traditional verification and oversight processes.

The findings point to a broader business risk as workforce identity, skills verification, and accountability increasingly impact cybersecurity, operational resilience, compliance, and enterprise risk management.

“The modern workplace was built on a simple assumption: the person hired is the person doing the work,” said Houman Akhavan, CEO of GCheck. “Today, that assumption is becoming harder for organizations to verify.”

More than half of employees (52%) say remote and hybrid work have made it harder to truly know their coworkers, while more than one-third (36%) wouldn’t know if coworkers were actually performing their jobs throughout the day.

Employees also raised concerns about hiring integrity and workforce capability:

• 81% have worked for an organization that hired someone who could not perform the job
• 77% have had to cover for or correct the work of a coworker who lacked the necessary skills.
• 57% believe candidates exaggerate their experience.
• 54% believe people have lied to secure jobs.
• 44% believe workers inflate technical and AI-related skills.
  

The findings also point to a growing gap between actual productivity and the appearance of productivity:

• 84% believe coworkers exaggerate how busy they are.
• 45% believe colleagues intentionally create the appearance of productivity without being productive.
• 17% admit pretending to work while doing something else.
• 14% admit using AI to complete work while allowing employers to believe they completed it themselves.

These concerns may help explain growing anxiety around so-called "ghost workers" -- situations where the person performing the work is not the person the employer hired. More than 1 in 4 employees (28%) say they have suspected a coworker was not actually the person hired or was not performing their own work, while 1 in 3 (33%) have heard of or know situations where someone was offered money to let another person use their identity or work authorization to obtain employment.

The Verification Half-Life™

These findings describe a single underlying problem. A background check confirms who someone is once, at the point of hire, and the confidence it provides begins to fade from that moment forward. Identities can be substituted, credentials and licenses can lapse, records can change, and the person who was screened is not always the person still doing the work. GCheck calls this the Verification Half-Life™: the steady erosion of certainty that follows a one-time check when nothing reconfirms who a worker is, what they can do, and whether they are the one doing the work.

While organizations may view these incidents as isolated cases, employees increasingly see workforce identity as a business risk. Nearly all employees (97%) believe misrepresenting skills or identity creates business risk; yet, only 14% believe employers are doing enough to verify workers today. The fixes employees want all work the same way, by resetting the clock rather than trusting a single check to hold indefinitely. Most employees support stronger skills verification (78%), proof candidates can perform the job (60%), stronger identity verification (59%), and more consistent verification across all hires (54%).

The stakes extend far beyond hiring decisions. When organizations lack confidence in workforce identity, skills, and accountability, the consequences can quickly show up in productivity, performance, turnover, and operational effectiveness.

“Findings from the “The Rise of the Shadow Workforce” report point to a fundamental shift in how organizations need to think about workforce trust," said Akhavan. "For decades, employers have relied on resumes, interviews, and one-time background checks to build trust in the people they hire. But the Shadow Workforce challenges one of the oldest assumptions in business—that the person hired is the person doing the work. As work becomes more digital, distributed, and AI-enabled, organizations need stronger ways to verify identity and validate skills. Closing the Verification Half-Life™ means confirming identity, credentials, and capability continuously, not assuming them after day one. Verification is no longer just a hiring function; it's becoming a business imperative."

Read full details from “The Rise of the Shadow Workforce” report here and explore the latest GCheck news and updates here. 

About GCheck 

GCheck is a modern, hire-to-retire screening platform dedicated to Compliance for Good^®, helping organizations hire and retain with speed, accuracy, and fairness. We operate across the entire employee lifecycle, delivering background checks, identity verification, drug testing, employment and professional verifications, continuous monitoring, and compliance management through one unified platform.

Our Compliance for Good^® framework is built on three pillars: transparent compliance, fair compliance, and protective compliance, ensuring every screening decision upholds dignity, reduces risk, and strengthens trust. GCheck serves enterprise HR teams, healthcare organizations, nonprofits, and regulated industries that need more than a fast check; they need a compliant, ethical, and audit-ready screening partner.  To learn more, visit gcheck.com 

Media Contact 
GCheck Media 
press@gcheck.com