The U.S.' ongoing labor shortage is bad for employers but presents an opportunity for workers who often could not find jobs in rosier economic times: ex-prisoners.
Incarcerated at 15, Jackson, Miss., resident Antonio McGowan, Wednesday, June 29, 2022, says he had limited prospects coming out of prison after being released in 2014. However, McGowan later enrolled in the Hinds County Reentry Program, which provides workforce training for formerly incarcerated people, which led to a work-based learning program at Hinds Community College, which placed him in a job that is giving him maintenance training in heating and air conditioning, while employed.
After several years adrift, McGowan was finally able to regain his footing with the help of the Hinds County Reentry Program, a workforce training program for former inmates created in October. Reentry programs are one way employers are trying to fill some of the 11.3 million open jobs in the U.S. amid a dire national labor shortage. The practice of employing people with a criminal record is known as “second-chance hiring.
Some studies have shown that stable jobs are a major factor in reducing recidivism. Still, not everyone is willing to hire an ex-convict, and a lack of job opportunities for those with a criminal record is still stymieing workforce participation in the economy, Stephanie Ferguson, a senior manager of employment policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wrote in a May report.
That's where programs like Hinds County Reentry and MagCor step in, helping to make former inmates more desirable as candidates by properly training them to reintegrate into society and matching them with jobs tailored to their skills and interests. “Summer, winter, spring or fall, you’ll need either heat or air conditioning," he said. "So I found something I can help people out with. At the same time, it can keep me in the working class, so I don’t fall back into the things I used to do.”
Freeman remembers taking a bus to an employment agency the day after she was released from prison. She said the agency told her she would never get a job because of her record.
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