‘Fair chance hiring’ is the answer to Kentucky’s lagging employment problem

The workforce shortage that has emerged following the pandemic is a strange and worrisome phenomenon. Despite the nearly 10 million Americans currently unemployed, jobs across industries remain unfilled, and employers are offering incentives from increased salaries to tuition assistance to attract the workforce they need to stay in business.

Here in Kentucky, the economy is struggling to cope with this hiring crisis. Our unemployment rate has nearly hit pre-pandemic levels at 4.5%, but companies are facing the dual problems of finding enough employees and retaining the ones they already have, who are overburdened by the weight of the extra responsibilities.

While some businesses believe training the next generation of employees — high school students — is the answer to this recent worker shortage, this is a short-term solution. A more sustainable, long-term solution to the staffing shortage is fair chance hiring. We should promote the implementation of fair chance hiring and turn to an untapped resource of willing employees: individuals with prior criminal convictions.

The incarceration rate in Kentucky is high by international standards, with 869 out of every 100,000 residents behind bars. In practice, that equates to 89,000 individuals being booked into local jails, and the rate of recidivism in Kentucky stands at nearly 41%. Even when these individuals leave the prison system and reenter society, their criminal record becomes a barrier to securing housing and employment, a failure in the system which feeds into the cycle of recidivism.

Local businesses are uniquely positioned to stop this cycle and benefit from gaining access to a new applicant pool, especially at a time when applicants are few and far between. Not only will employing those with prior convictions help meet workforce demands, but it will also go a long way towards addressing larger societal problems of poverty, crime, and recidivism in Kentucky.

There are many states already implementing fair chance hiring policies, and Kentucky has not been immune to this trend, as the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce recently began listing which employers are accepting applicants with a criminal record on their job board. Although this is a good first step, more local employers need to adopt and promote these policies.

One way to do this is through the Ban the Box movement, which calls for the removal of the question regarding past criminal activity from job applications and helps avoid filtering qualified candidates out on the basis of past mistakes. Thirty-six states, as well as the District of Columbia, have already adopted Ban the Box measures, including all of our immediate neighbors. It’s time for Kentucky to follow suit, and that push must start with local businesses expressing their willingness to hire individuals with prior convictions.

There is an unspoken concern that hiring these people could be bad for businesses, whether because of safety concerns or reputation, but those fears couldn’t be further from the truth. The vast majority - 65% - of those with a felony conviction in Kentucky were charged with nonviolent drug or property offenses. Kentucky is also one of 32 states that still classifies simple drug possession as a felony, but these offenses are often isolated mistakes that go on to alter the course of that person’s entire life.

Kentucky businesses can’t afford to screen these individuals out of the hiring process, nor should they want to. Fair chance hiring practices are the first step towards removing this significant barrier to employment, and there are other protections available to employers, such as continuous screening or monitoring, that can serve as a framework for making this change without sacrificing peace of mind.

Our state is not alone in dealing with this unprecedented workforce crisis, but we are one of only a few to have resisted the benefits of fair chance hiring. We can’t expect the next generation of workers to solve problems we have been unwilling to face, and now is the time to take a step towards a more equitable — and long-term — solution to ensure Kentucky can weather this and future storms.

Krisy Bucher is with Appriss Insights, which helps businesses and government agencies save lives, prevent fraud and manage risk with data analytics.