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Job Opportunities for Ex-Offenders with Criminal Records Should Increase in 2016 T
The shrinking workforce in the United States, decriminalization of nonviolent crimes, protections against liability for employers willing to hire applicants with criminal records, and the rapidly spreading “Ban the Box” movement will all combine to create more job opportunities for reformed ex-offenders in 2016. This is the number 9 trend selected by Employment Screening Resources® (ESR) Founder and CEO Attorney Lester Rosen for the 9th annual ESR Top Ten Background Check Trends for 2016.
“The use of criminal records by employers is not without controversy for the simple reason that it impacts core American values,” says Rosen, author of ‘The Safe Hiring Manual.’ “On one hand, Americans want a safe workplace with qualified and honest workers that are fit and suitable for the job and where the public is not at risk. On the other hand, the U.S. is also a country of second chances where ex-offenders can start over if they made a mistake, and where privacy and fairness are critical.”
How many potential ex-offenders that may seek employment are currently in the United States? A 2011 study titled ‘65 Million Need Not Apply’ conducted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) estimated that 64.6 million people in the U.S. – representing 27.8 percent or more than one in four adults – had some type of criminal record on file. NELP, a research and advocacy group for low-wage and unemployed workers, has since revised that number up to approximately 70 million U.S. adults.
Rosen explains there is bi-partisan support in Washington DC to address the issue of the United States having the most prisoners of any developed country in the world in both raw numbers and by percentage of the population. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) found there were more than 1.57 million inmates in federal, state, and county prisons and jails in the U.S. at the end of 2013. The U.S. has roughly five percent of the world’s population but has approximately 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, according to estimates.
A shrinking labor force is also a reality. The November 2015 jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed that the civilian labor force participation rate was at 62.5 percent with 157,301 workers during the month. Labor Force Statistics from the BLS show that the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate of workers 16 years and over has declined steadily in recent years from the 66.4 percent measured in January 2007 before the Great Recession hit the U.S. economy to 62.5 percent in November 2015.
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