A credit report is a private account for each person to show their credit worthiness to potential creditors. The reports are confidential and must be accessed using a social security number and personal information by the user requesting the information.
An employer can legally check a persons credit history because some companies do not want an employee that has bad credit. This shows the employer that the person is not financially secure and can show they are capable of fraud or even theft if they owe a lot of money. Usually this is done by companies in the banking industry or in jobs where the employee will be around a lot of money or access to billing, etc.
The employer does not receive a complete credit history or the credit score. They will receive a modified version that shows their payment history to debtors and also information on how much debt the potential employee has.
