Credit checks for Job hopefuls

Another hurdle in finding a job is now being said to be credit checks for job hopefuls. It is not encouraging since many of the jobless have exhausted their savings and put more debt on their credit cards, have less money available overall because of their job situation. So how will they be able to land a job when their credit score will be affected by more debt and possibly late or missed payments, bankruptcies and defaults? It is just another excuse on the part of the employers since they have so much choice in finding the right employee that they are now trying to find the perfect employee and they could, but what would happen to the less than the perfect one.

Sometimes the credit checks can be helpful like in the case of some jobs of accounting /finance/banking or anything dealing with cash or credit but for other jobs do we really need to go over their credit history and waste more time in screening potential employees. I guess the employers have more time on their hands to go over these reports which do contain sometimes erroneous history. The best way to deal here is to disregard the credit check or rely more on references because they can be better judge of the type of personality of the employee and it may also include their financial health as well.