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In todays dynamic labor market, industries from manufacturing to healthcare continue to grapple with persistent workforce shortages. To fill these gaps, organizations are looking beyond traditional talent pools. One of the most promising yet significantly underutilized groups is second-chance talent, or graduates of prison education programs. These individuals represent millions of highly motivated and skilled professionals seeking stability after incarceration. Too often, outdated hiring methods and social stigmas have blocked justice-impacted individuals from employment opportunities that could change their lives. However, by shifting perspectives and implementing strategic programs, forward-thinking companies can access a dependable source of skilled workers while creating a positive social impact. THE SCALE OF UNTAPPED POTENTIAL The United States criminal justice system affects a much larger portion of the population than most realize. About 600,000 Americans are released from state and local prisons each year. This means nearly one in three or 70 million adults have a criminal record. Many of these individuals face obstacles when reentering society. In a recent episode of Geographic Solutions podcast, The VOScast, Jeffrey Abramowitz, CEO of the Petey Greene Program, stated, It is estimated that there are more than 44,000 barriers to employment for the formerly incarcerated, with 70% related to employment. Securing stable employment after prison is often the biggest challenge for justice-involved individuals. This is due to several factors, including a lack of education, nonexistent or inadequate job skills, and the stigma of having a criminal record, which often leads to higher rates of recidivism. According to the Safer Foundation, about 75% of justice-impacted individuals stay unemployed one year after their release. These barriers not only limit an individual’s potential but also represent a missed opportunity for employers facing labor shortages. I think we’re missing an amazing opportunity right now in the country, and that opportunity is to recognize fair chance hiring or getting people who have been challenged in the Justice space back to work, said Abramowitz in the podcast. I also believe we’re missing an opportunity and not recognizing the reality that education plays a vital role in the United States. BRIDGE SKILLS GAPS WITH TARGETED TRAINING PROGRAMS The path to integrating individuals with a criminal record into the workforce begins with education and training. Reentry programs play a crucial role in helping justice-impacted individuals successfully reintegrate into society. They offer a variety of services tailored to meet the needs of those returning to the community. These programs provide job training, educational opportunities, housing support, counseling, and soft and hard skills development. A study by the RAND Corporation found that reentry education programs may boost employment prospects post-release, with participants having a 13% higher chance of getting a job than non-participants. Many of these individuals might struggle with reading, writing, and basic math, all of which are essential components for not only getting hired but also being able to advance their career, said Abramowitz in the podcast. When we talk about getting people back into employment and finding good opportunities for them, we also need to think about the integration of education and how we can set people up to succeed. Many nonprofit organizations are creating tailored training programs to equip people with skills, knowledge, and opportunities that directly align with market needs. Organizations like the California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA) have led innovative reentry initiatives, preparing justice-impacted individuals for productive lives outside of prison and reducing their chances of reoffending. A recent study from the University of California, Irvine found that individuals who have participated in CALPIAs programs while incarcerated have lower rates of recidivism compared to those who did not participate. Similarly, the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction is partnering with the Division of Workforce Solutions at the Department of Commerce for the North Carolina Pathway to Reentry. Using funds from the Pathway Home grant, the project provides pre- and post-release activities, including workshops, counseling, and training to help people transition out of incarceration and reenter their communities. It focuses on goal setting, action plans, education, and skill development for specific jobs. Creating easily accessible pathways for skill development and job training unlocks new opportunities that not only benefit those with a criminal background but also businesses that are looking to address labor shortages. BUILD BRIDGES WITH EMPLOYERS With many industries facing skill and labor shortages, companies are recognizing the value of this untapped workforce. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, two in three HR professionals reported that their organization has hired individuals with criminal backgrounds. Moreover, 85% of HR leaders believe second-chance hires perform as well as or better than other employees. Despite this, some employers may hesitate to consider second-chance hiring due to concerns about liability, employee morale, perceived unreliability, and social stigmas. A recent survey from the Second Chance Business Coalition shows that almost 90% of employers mandate background checks for applicants, and having a criminal record decreases the likelihood of progressing to a second interview by half. To successfully hire from this talent pool, employers must move beyond these stigmas and understand that second-chance hiring is more than a charitable act. By re-evaluating long-held hiring biases and actively engaging with this talent pool, organizations can transform a societal challenge into a strategic business advantage that benefits everyone. Companies such as JPMorganChase and Dave’s Killer Bread are notable examples of organizations that have effectively implemented a second-chance employment model. JPMorganChase reports that almost 10% of their hires over the past five years have had a criminal record, and a third of Daves Killer Bread staff, including cofounder Dave Dahl, have felony convictions. LOOKING AHEAD The way forward to addressing labor shortages involves a shift in how businesses perceive and engage with talent acquisition. It requires a proactive approach to recognize justice-impacted individuals as highly motivated and skilled professionals capable of contributing to the workforce. By adopting inclusive hiring practices, companies can effectively fill labor gaps while also fostering a more diverse workplace. This strategy not only promotes economic growth by expanding the talent pool but also benefits local communities by offering opportunities for individuals to successfully reintegrate into society and attain long-term stability. Paul Toomey is the founder and president of Geographic Solutions.
Category:
E-Commerce
On a recent Saturday, several hundred people flocked to Los Angeles International Airport and spent most of the day looking at airplanes — all because they follow the same airline-industry blog. That sentence may require some explanation even if youve read a post or two on Cranky Flier, the commercial-aviation chronicle written by industry veteran Brett Snyder. The avgeek gathering Snyder calls Cranky Dorkfest began in 2011. Snyder, based nearby in Long Beach, decided to see if any of his readers — many of whom regularly show up in comments on his blog under aviation-related pseudonyms — wanted to meet up. So Snyder suggested a triangular park between LAXs Runway 24R and an In-N-Out Burger that offers some of Americas finest planespotting. The original plan was really just me putting out a blog post saying that I was going to go to the park across from In-N-Out and hoped some people would join me for burgers, spotting, and conversation, Synder says in an email. A handful did. And then it just kept growing from there. The idea took off because the notion of people meeting online over a shared fascination and then connecting IRL shouldn’t be that strange. Especially if their meeting point happens to revolve around their common interest. Soon, airlines, flight-tracking apps and services, and Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) started taking notice and finding ways to participate, perhaps because of or despite its self-mocking moniker of Dorkfest. (I got some raised eyebrows explaining the event to friends.) “You have to own it, says Snyder, whose job title at his travel agency, Cranky Concierge, is president and chief airline dork. Plane selfies The 2025 edition of Dorkfest began early Sept. 13 at a ramp on the south side of the airport hosted by LAWA. The authority required attendees to register in advance; a week later, signups maxed out at 500. Attendees had the treat of two parked airliners to be explored at length: American Airlines sent a Boeing 737-800 in its throwback Astrojet livery and Delta Air Lines loaned an Airbus A350-900. With almost everybody wanting a flight-deck selfie, boarding took awhile. LAWA catered breakfast from the local favorite Randys Donuts and brought a DJ, who spun location- and subject-relevant tracks like A Tribe Called Quests I Left My Wallet In El Segundo and the Red Hot Chili Peppers Aeroplane. A large fraction of the attendees ignored all of that to stand next to a fence separating the area from an active taxiway so they could take in the view of arrivals and departures on LAXs two southern runways — plus a Boeing 747-8 freighter operated by Cathay Pacific Cargo taxiing nearby. I hope people have travel plans soon A few hours later, it was time to head over to the In-N-Out thats become my favorite fast-food joint in the world. People opened ride-hailing apps for the short ride and waited for their Ubers and Lyfts to roll up, which is when I ran into a friend from grade and high school, an aviation lawyer I hadnt seen since March of 2020. The lunchtime scene at this In-N-Out is always great, since that block overlaps with the start of a wave of arrivals of widebody jets from overseas. Even with a few hundred extra people added to the noon crowd, the place remained as marvelously efficient as Ive seen it in past visits to L.A. As attendees cycled their gaze from flight-tracking apps to each Boeing 777 or Airbus A350 arriving from places like Shanghai, Paris, Rome or Singapore, Snyder conducted a raffle drawing, with prizes contributed by a flock of companies. Struggling to be heard over the roar of jet engines even with the help of a megaphone, Snyder cracked jokes as he called out winners of such goodies as a subscription to the aviation-industry publication The Air Current, free tickets or frequent-flyer miles from various airlines (I hope people have travel plans soon, he said while awarding 20,000 points from bankrupt Spirit Airlines), models of planes, and bundles of airline swag. One airline had a formal presence: Recently merged Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines sent reps to hand out their inflight snacks of pretzel mix, Biscoff cookies, and POG (passionfruit orange guava) juice to any attendees not already stuffed from animal style Double-Doubles. Other years have seen more in-person airline participation. Snyder recalls 2019s Dorkfest, when United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz showed up and handed out burgers.The day wrapped up with an event hosted by NYCAviatio at a food hall called the Proud Bird, situated across Aviation Boulevard from LAXs other pair of runways. The plane that drew the most cheers out of the audience was not any passenger airliner but a more esoteric airframe: a McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 freighter operated by FedEx, the final version in a series of triple-engine widebodies dating to the DC-10. That New York aviation-enthusiast group had started its own annual SpotLAX meetup a few years after Dorkfest began, then opted to align that gathering with Snyders. We realized we should keep doing that, Snyder says. It really increased the opportunities for people to participate and helped justify travel from further away to come join. The two farthest origin points for 2025s Dorkfest, per a map at the Great Circle Mapper site generated from attendee input: Shizuoka, Japan and Haikou, China. Most real-world meetups of online communities dont draw people from that far awaywith the exception of such high-profile gatherings as the NASA Socials that the space agency hosts for launches. On one I joined for the penultimate space shuttle launch in 2011, I was struck by how readily strangers agreed to coordinate on shared housing nd rental-car transportation. Often, these gatherings are much smaller-scale, like Wikipedia-editor meetups, the weekly happy hours coordinated by some local Reddit forums (see, for example, those at r/washingtondc) or just two members of the FlyerTalk frequent-travel forum recognizing each others yellow FT luggage tags in an airport lounge. It may be weird showing up to these events. But embrace the weirdness and the chance to get to know strangers who maybe arent so distant from you. As Snyder says: The best moments are meeting people who I’ve never seen other than in discussion online.
Category:
E-Commerce
A new study out Wednesday in the journal Nature from the University of California, Berkeley found that women are systematically presented as younger than men online and by artificial intelligencebased on an analysis of 1.4 million online images and videos, plus nine large language models trained on billions of words. Researchers looked at content from Google, Wikipedia, IMDb, Flickr, and YouTube, and major large language models including GPT2, and found women consistently appeared younger than men across 3,495 occupational and social categories. (Note: It’s possible that filters on videos and women’s makeup may be adding to this age-related gender bias in visual content.) Study data showed not only are women asystematically portrayed as younger than men across online platforms, but this distortion is strongest for content depicting occupations with higher status and earnings. It also found that Googling images of occupations amplified age-related gender bias in participants beliefs and hiring preferences. “This kind of age-related gender bias has been seen in other studies of specific industries, and anecdotally . . . but no one has previously been able to examine this at such scale,” said Solne Delecourt, assistant professor at the Berkeley Haas School of Business, who co-authored the study along with Douglas Guilbeault from Stanford’s business school and Bhargav Srinivasa Desikan from Oxford’s Autonomy Institute. “Even though the internet is wrong, when it tells us this fact about the world, we start believing it to be true,” Guilbeault said. “It brings us deeper into bias and error.” Looking specifically at ChatGPT, researchers found when the AI chatbot generated and analyzed some 40,000 resumes, it assumed women were younger by 1.6 years and had less work experience, while rating older male applicants as more qualifiedeven though the data shows no systematic age differences between men and women in the workforce. But perhaps the greatest takeaway from the study is that this biased view online reinforces inaccuracies about, and stereotypes of women, which can end up creating a distorted feedback loop between online perceptions and AI, that moves from the internet into the real worldwhich can then result in widening the gap between men and women in the job market.
Category:
E-Commerce
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