Employers need workers. It is good news for these people.

“I don’t think employers can be as picky as they used to be,” said Carly Kammerer, executive director of Minneapolis-based Wayflier Coffee, which helps homeless youth establish stable living conditions and gain job skills. “There’s a sense of dignity and worth that comes with employment… Sometimes a sense of self-confidence and a paycheck can go a long way.”

Kammerer said small business owners are reaching out to her for awareness and sometimes employees. “People are seeing us as an employment agency, so we are able to increase opportunity and be a pipeline or referral source for our youth,” she said.

“You have to do a lot of active recruiting to get the amount of labor you need to grow the business,” says Struwe, who expanded his search and hired one of the adults participating in the Wildflyer program as a package. Coffee in his warehouse.

The employee was a good fit, Struwe said, and is preparing to hire a second employee from the program this year. “This is someone I want to keep,” he said.

Fair opportunity to increase the speed of hiring

People a Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist and senior fellow at the WE Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, said earlier that criminal prosecutions face a different — and in many ways, greater — challenge.

“Between 1980 and 2010, America’s violent crime record tripled … as a result of the war on drugs and mass incarceration,” he said. “There are more people in our communities now who have that experience and have that barrier than ever before.”

But as employers struggle to fill open positions, fair opportunity hiring, which refers to hiring practices that do not exclude or discriminate against candidates with criminal histories, is becoming more and more imminent.

“We don’t often need to post for jobs,” says Amanda LaGrange, CEO of RePower, St. Paul, Minnesota. A company that recycles electronic waste and runs an on-the-job training program for formerly incarcerated people.

“There’s great talent, it’s just been disconnected,” LaGrange said. “A lot of our work is about reducing stigma.”

Employers today seem to be more receptive to those messages. “Employers are warming to the idea of ​​considering applicants who don’t, including those with prior criminal records,” said Indeed’s senior economist, Elizabeth Konkel.

The number of job postings that clearly indicate such policies has risen by nearly 10% over the past three years, and the share of searches by job seekers using the phrase “no background check” has increased by 75%. “This data tells us that employers are expanding the pool of workers they are considering hiring, and job seekers know it,” she said.

Gabriel Mandujano, founder and CEO of WashCycle Laundry, operates a commercial laundry service in the Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, DC, metro areas.

“In most of our facilities, we have to work seven days a week,” he said. One of the most frequent things we see is that people can go out on a Monday through Friday schedule, and that’s definitely something that didn’t happen as often before the pandemic.

Mandujano said WashCycle has had a long-standing commitment to hiring managers who are overlooked, including those with criminal records and people with disabilities, a value that has helped it increase staffing even during labor shortages.

Steve Stansbury, a resident of Philadelphia, struggled to hold down a steady job after returning home in March 2021. “I know because I have a record,” he said.

Stansbury, 34, was hired by WashCycle in November and promoted less than six months later. “I actually asked my boss what I want to do, he makes the job easier, because I’m doing something I love,” he said.

Stansbury hopes that the work has given him the foundation to build a career and one day even start his own business. “I haven’t missed a day of work yet. I take it seriously … I don’t want to go back to jail. I’m applying myself properly,” he said. “I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have this job.”

Students are gaining on-the-job experience.

Lack of educational credentials Or experience can be a barrier keeping people from career-track work.

“We are watching. [fewer] People with retail experience or longevity with the job. said Elise Lark, manager of stores and operations at Paxton’s Gate, a natural science-themed retailer in Portland, Oregon.

“Our payroll has gone up at least 30% or more, and that’s just in the last year,” Lark said, and the store recently expanded its health coverage. But even with these efforts, their attempts to recruit were unsuccessful. “We’re basically like a natural history museum, so it’s a very unique retail business… you need someone who’s passionate about natural science,” she says.

Through a program that pairs local college students with mom-and-pop businesses, Lark said her store was able to hire a part-time biology major during the busy holiday season. “This was a great opportunity for the student to learn real-world work experience,” she said.

Macy Buhler, owner of Yahara River Learning Center in DeForest, Wisconsin, said adding non-essential staff is a big challenge. “Even some Targets are paying $19 an hour. Now I can’t compete with the big companies. It’s a struggle,” she said.

Her preschool teachers must be credentialed at the associate’s degree level, but Buhler said the educational requirements can be a barrier for young, working-class and often female child care workers. “They have to work full time. They don’t come from families where they stop and go to school,” she said.

Buhler recently signed up two new employees as part of a two-year pilot program run by the state.

“It’s a more supported way for them to go back to school. I have to support them by spending time on schoolwork,” Buhler said. the find Sense of access to higher education. “She doesn’t have people in her family who went to college. [and] She told me that she had no one to give her this example.

The long-term impact of labor shortages

The job market was already tightening before the pandemic hit. Waves of retiring baby boomers, falling birth rates, childcare shortages and slowing immigration pose long-term challenges for hiring managers, he said. And all of these issues have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

“In early 2018, as we saw the unemployment rate drop, [we realized] We no longer have the luxury of not thinking about people broadly,” said Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Human Resource Management Association.

“The problem is the stigma” these populations often face from HR and hiring managers, Taylor said. “Every employer … needs to give people permission to hire from untapped talent pools. We need to instill that into our organization.”

Finding and maintaining stable employment is an important part of attracting these people not only to the workforce, but also to their communities, Sojourner said. “When people are locked out of the workforce, they have a hard time finding ways to contribute to society,” he said.

Once employed, they can support themselves and their families and make a meaningful contribution to the local economy.

It is better for the workers themselves. “Having an employment history will definitely help you stay employed,” says Sojourner. Employees with references and a track record that demonstrate their commitment to work are easier to choose from.

And in an economy where the biggest wage gains occur when workers switch jobs, mobility is key to unlocking their earning potential.

Taylor hopes that today’s labor market and labor shortages are likely to continue to be challenging for employers, eventually lowering the barriers to entry or re-entry into the workforce.

“We’ve had low and increasingly low birth rates in America over the years [that] He won’t release himself,” he said.