The survey follows in the footsteps of an older fraud poll from Ernst & Young worldwide, carried out last May. In this "Fraud ? The Unmanaged Risk" research, some 80% of Canadian employers reported that they had actually been defrauded by their employees. The new survey findings merely corroborate the earlier data on the pervasiveness of the problem.

A commentator from Ernst and Young commented that, "Like most parasites, successful fraudsters don’t kill their hosts, they just drain their blood little by little day by day. Our calculations show that the business would have had to generate revenues of $10-15 million to pay for the fraud over its duration." Other prime examples of workplace fraud include creating phoney supplier invoices, altering the books to make profit or costs look better, pocketing cash sales proceeds and taking company property.

In terms of the types of business affected, the survey found there is relatively little difference between the public and private sectors. In Canada, the incidence of fraud, or the personal awareness of it, ranges from 27% amongst employees in government, healthcare, construction and service industries, to a slightly reduced level of 23% in finance, technology and other professional sectors.

The Ernst & Young research was based on the findings of an Ipsos-Reid survey between October 4 and October 15, 2000 on a sample of 822 Canadian employees.