HCM & HRIS

Festive hiring rush exposes a deeper risk: Who is really joining the workforce?

November 3, 2026
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The stakes are rising as businesses prepare for concentrated demand across e-commerce, quick commerce, logistics, retail and fulfilment operations. />India’s festive hiring season is creating a paradox for employers: the need to put more workers on the ground, faster, is colliding with the growing complexity of establishing who those workers really are.<br><br><!– PROMOSLOT_M –>Background verification (BGV) firm AuthBridge found that 5.61 percent of gig-worker profiles had verification discrepancies in the first half of FY2026, compared with 4.33 percent among white-collar workers. Within the gig workforce, <a id=” captionrendered=”1″ data-src=”https://etimg.etb2bimg.com/photo/135452486.cms?mod=671869″ height=”442″ href=”http://hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com/tag/identity+verification+issues” keywordseo=”identity-verification-issues” loading=”eager” source=”keywords” src=”https://hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com/images/default.jpg” type=”Denny” weightage=”20″ width=”590″></img>identity verification issues accounted for 2.53 percent of profiles, while address verification issues stood at 9.70 percent.</p> <p>The findings do not establish that every discrepancy represents deliberate fraud. They do, however, expose a vulnerability in a labour market increasingly dependent on rapid onboarding, digital recruitment and flexible workforce models.</p> <p>For Ajay Trehan, Founder and CEO of AuthBridge, the problem is structural rather than merely procedural.</p> <blockquote> <p>The H1 FY26 Workforce Fraud Files clearly show that hiring-related discrepancies remain a persistent and structural challenge. Despite faster and more digitised hiring workflows, we continue to see gaps in fundamental checks such as employment history, address, and education<cite>Ajay Trehan, Founder and CEO of AuthBridge</cite></p> </blockquote> <p>“These are not minor inconsistencies; they have direct implications for organisational risk, compliance, and trust,” he said.</p> <p>The stakes are rising as businesses prepare for concentrated demand across e-commerce, quick commerce, logistics, retail and fulfilment operations. According to foundit’s October 2026 Insights Tracker, festival-related white-collar hiring reached 127,080 jobs, up 7 percent year-on-year. Quick commerce recorded 18 percent growth, followed by white-collar gig and freelance hiring at 15 percent, e-commerce at 12 percent, and logistics and transportation at 10 percent.</p> <p>The expansion is also moving beyond major metropolitan centres. Tier-II cities recorded 11 percent growth in festival-related white-collar opportunities, while Tier-III and emerging cities grew 15 percent, according to the tracker.</p> <p>More hiring across more locations means employers must establish identity and credentials at scale, often within compressed timelines. The challenge is no longer simply whether a candidate can be recruited quickly, but whether the verification process can keep pace without leaving material risks undetected.</p> <p><b>The shift from forged documents to identity substitution</b></p> <p>For Amit Rahane, Partner, EY Forensic and Integrity Services, the nature of hiring fraud is changing in ways that make conventional document checks insufficient.</p> <blockquote> <p>Today we are seeing that hiring fraud is no longer restricted to somebody altering an experience letter or submitting a fake education certificate. It is increasingly becoming identity led<cite>Amit Rahane, Partner, EY Forensic and Integrity Services</cite></p> </blockquote> <p>The distinction is consequential. A fabricated degree or inflated employment record misrepresents a candidate’s qualifications. Identity substitution raises a more fundamental question: whether the individual who applies, interviews, submits documents and eventually reports for work is the same person throughout the process.</p> <p>Rahane identifies several patterns that employers need to monitor: borrowed or substituted identities, proxy candidates who participate in parts of recruitment before another person takes the job, manipulated employment records, and technology-assisted document alterations that may be difficult to detect visually.</p> <p>The concern extends to AI-enabled impersonation, although individual cases need to be substantiated before being attributed to generative AI or deepfake technology. In its May 2025 analysis, ‘The First Firewall: Background Checks as India Inc.’s Frontline Defense’ EY identified deepfakes in virtual interviews, forged documents, embellished résumés and dual employment among the increasingly complex forms of employment fraud confronting HR functions. The analsys argued for technology-enabled screening to improve the speed and accuracy of verification.</p> <p>The risk is particularly pronounced when recruitment and deployment happen in quick succession. A person could pass an initial document review, only for an identity mismatch or discrepancy to emerge after onboarding.</p> <p>EY’s technology has flagged more than 100,000 duplicate documents and over 20,000 similar documents, Rahane said. While these figures are not a measure of festive-season fraud, they illustrate why checking individual records in isolation may be insufficient. Comparing documents across larger populations can reveal patterns that a manual review might miss.</p> <p>For employers, the implication is clear: establishing that a document looks genuine is not the same as establishing that it belongs to the person presenting it.</p> <p><b>Why gig hiring creates a different verification challenge</b></p> <p>The higher discrepancy rate recorded among gig workers also points to the need for a more differentiated approach to background verification.</p> <p>AuthBridge’s report found that address verification issues among gig workers stood at 9.70 percent in H1 FY26, down significantly from 19 percent in FY2024. Identity verification issues stood at 2.53%, while criminal and court record verification issues accounted for 2.23 percent.</p> <p>The improvement in address verification is encouraging, but the remaining discrepancy rate suggests that basic checks continue to require attention.</p> <p>The nature of the risk also differs by employment category. AuthBridge found that employment history was the most affected verification category among white-collar workers, with an 11.15 percent discrepancy rate. For gig workers, address verification was a more prominent concern.</p> <p>This distinction matters because verification frameworks designed primarily for permanent, office-based employees may not adequately address the circumstances of a geographically dispersed, mobile workforce.</p> <p>Chahat Garg, Head of HR at ElasticRun, said the expansion of flexible workforce models across e-commerce, quick commerce and logistics has made scalable, reliable verification increasingly important. The shift is also geographic: Tier-II and Tier-III markets are becoming important talent pools for logistics and fulfilment roles.</p> <blockquote> <p>Businesses need verification processes that are accurate, can handle large volumes and don’t slow down workforce deployment<cite>Chahat Garg, Head of HR at ElasticRun</cite></p> </blockquote> <p>At e-commerce platform ElasticRun, identity checks are integrated into onboarding through its application. The company is also maintaining workforce records and tailoring verification requirements to the nature of the job and its associated risks.</p> <p>Garg emphasised that identity validation cannot remain a one-time, manual, paper-driven exercise. At the same time, she cautioned against assuming that every discrepancy is evidence of deliberate misrepresentation. Each case must be examined before conclusions are drawn.</p> <p>That qualification is important. An address mismatch, an incomplete employment record and an attempt to impersonate another individual are not equivalent risks. Treating them as such could create unnecessary friction for legitimate candidates while diverting attention from more serious warning signs.</p> <p><b>The cost of choosing speed over scrutiny</b></p> <p>The operational temptation during peak hiring is understandable. Delays in onboarding can leave fulfilment centres understaffed, constrain delivery capacity and affect customer experience at precisely the moment demand is highest.</p> <p>But postponing verification can shift rather than eliminate the risk. If a significant discrepancy surfaces after a worker has been deployed, the employer may have to investigate the case, restrict access, replace the worker and address any resulting operational or reputational consequences.</p> <p>Rahane argued that the answer is not to slow recruitment indiscriminately.</p> <p>“I don’t think the problem is speed itself. The problem arises when organisations achieve speed by reducing verification rather than making verification smarter,” he said.</p> <p>This means moving appropriate checks earlier in the recruitment process, using technology to identify anomalies and reserving human investigation for cases that warrant closer scrutiny.</p> <div> <div> <p><img alt=<div class=” data-src=”https://etimg.etb2bimg.com/thumb/135025808.cms?width=141&height=90″ descbx=”” height=”70″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://img.etb2bimg.com/files/cp/upload-1716883386-ethr-default.webp” width=”110″>

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