There have been any number of terms used to describe the current labor crunch in Arkansas, and with current statistics being what they are, economists can now apply another descriptor: historic.
No matter how you slice it, Arkansas is in uncharted water when it comes to its unemployment rate. On July 26, the St. Louis Fed reported unemployment in the state had fallen to 2.6 percent in June, the third straight month of decline after falling below 3 percent for the first time ever in April. The state’s unemployment rate is a full percentage point lower than the national average, about as much as the rate has dropped in just the first six months of the year.
While on the one hand, it’s decidedly positive news that so many in Arkansas are gainfully employed, the inches-deep labor pool presents steep challenges for companies in the state looking to grow after reeling from COVID, supply chain and inflationary blows over the past three years.
Employment in Arkansas increased by more than 4,200 month-over-month, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the labor force grew by only about 2,900, demonstrating how job creation is outpacing the available bodies needed to fill them.
Yet there are many individuals that still go overlooked by companies. Individuals with disabilities, immigrants and the formerly incarcerated have long been on the fringes of the hiring mainstream, either due to mistrust of past deeds, language and culture barriers or because of stereotypical thinking about what accommodations are needed to put such individuals to work.
FREE TO WORK
According to Restore Hope Arkansas, a Little Rock-based organization formed to help individuals move successfully from incarceration back into to society, the state averages between 8,000 and 8,500 individuals released from state incarceration annually. Half of these individuals reenter society in Arkansas without full time employment.
“We served 2,932 parents statewide in the last 12 months and 78 percent of those are moms and 22 percent are dads,” said Karen Phillips, Restore Hope’s associate director, community development, who is based in Fort Smith. “These all have children under the age of 18 and 48 percent, when they come in to meet with us, have no income from any source. The issues they’re facing are difficult, like 31 percent of them having been convicted of a felony at some point in time. That does cause inability to obtain employment, especially the type of employment that a parent needs that would work well with parenting young children.”
Karen Phillips, Restore Hope Arkansas
Contrary to popular belief, there are relatively few jobs that are closed to people by state or federal law strictly based on one’s criminal record, particularly nonviolent offenses. But where those restrictions do exist, they present another hurdle to people looking to get back into the labor force.
“There are some statutes that keep parents from being able to access certain types of employment after they’ve been convicted of a felony, or even a misdemeanor,” Phillips said. “There are tons of misdemeanor charges that keep people from being employed, such as childcare. A lot of these moms have little ones, so they want to work in the childcare field. I believe it’s three years, if you’ve been convicted of certain types of misdemeanors, where you’re not allowed to work in childcare. I have a mama that was doing amazing and that came up. So, she was no longer allowed to work there.”
Past that, most restrictions in hiring based on background are more often a company policy as opposed to a legal matter, meaning most companies can exercise their own judgement when considering felons for job openings. And more companies are doing just that, including corporate bell cows Google, Lowe’s and Arkansas’ own Tyson Foods. In fact, Tyson’s employment application doesn’t even inquire about prior convictions.
“[These individuals are] rehabilitated; they’ve recovered from a lot of past issues, and they just want to support their families. And they do work hard,” said Phillips. “It’s not that they don’t want to work hard. I have seen parents benefit greatly from employers removing some of those barriers that they used to have and saying that they will hire people with certain types of felonies.”
Such is not to say that bringing the formerly incarcerated on board will be exactly like any other applicant. Ex-cons commonly face challenges other employees don’t such as reliable transportation or court dates or probation requirements they must meet to remain on the outside. Challenges related to children can also be more acute for a family trying to reunite after a parent’s time in the system.
“If there’s not any flexibility in the hours and I can’t get my kids to school in the morning, or at least get them to the bus stop and then go in, then that’s a problem,” Phillips said. “I think that a lot of it has to do with keeping in mind how life works for the people that you’re trying to get hired and the things that they’re trying to overcome. Most can’t just call Mom to come watch the kids.
“Another piece of the flexibility is they almost always have regular parole probation meetings that they have to go to, and then they have court that they have to go to, and then they have to stop in for a drug test every week, which is as good thing. If you’re an employer, you would probably be like, ‘yay, they’re getting drug tested every single week.’ But they have no choice in having to do all this. They have to be able to go to those meetings or they’re absconding.”
Communities also have an important role to play in the successful reentry of former inmates by breaking down barriers between service agencies. Such is the mission of Restore Hope’s 100 Families Initiative, which helps communities identify bottlenecks that complicate access to needed services. Through this program, city stakeholders work together to help provide a single point of contact from which an individual can access multiple agencies and service providers.
The results of these efforts at both the company and municipal level have been impressive. Where it’s been deployed, the 100 Families Initiative has cut recidivism, reunited children in foster care with their parents, and boosted employment among former inmates at rates well ahead of state and national averages.
Companies that have gone to the time and effort to adjust to the needs of this employee pool have also benefited. As the Second Chance Business Coalition noted, 85 percent of human resources leaders and 81 percent of business leaders report people with criminal records perform the same as, or better than, employees without criminal records. Similarly, the Society for Human Resource Management reported employers as describing employees with criminal records as strongly motivated, highly dedicated and long tenured.
“These folks want to be good employees,” Phillips said. “I’ve definitely seen more flexibility on the part of employers, and we have more people that are able to get employed because of that. If companies can look beyond some past felony charge, it makes such a huge difference in these people’s lives.”
BREAKING STEREOTYPES
Imagine being a hiring manager and having access to a potential labor pool that not only numbers in the millions nationwide, but that data has shown to bring substantial gains in productivity, shareholder value and profitability. That’s exactly what Americans with disabilities offer for employers.
According to a national study by Accenture, this employee demographic checks all the boxes that any company could want. Those companies that have welcomed such workers — what Accenture called “disability inclusion champions” — have reaped substantial benefits including 72 percent more productivity, 30 percent higher profit margins and a whopping 200 percent higher net income, to say nothing of brand enhancement as a truly inclusive workplace.
Yet despite numbering 15.1 million people of working age in the U.S., only a fraction of this pool participated in the workforce in 2018 — Accenture reported it as 29 percent; the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims it’s closer to 19 percent — compared to 75 percent of American workers without a disability. And the unemployment rate for individuals with disabilities is roughly twice as high as the able-bodied, at 9.2 percent versus 4.2 percent, respectively, per Accenture.
One of the leading hesitancies by employers to hire a disabled worker stems from the belief it would require extensive and costly accommodations to do so. However, a recent study by Job Accommodation Network, a service of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, debunked such fears. Survey respondents reported nearly 60 percent of accommodations cost absolutely nothing to make, while the rest typically cost only about $500 per affected employee.
Access Academy of Little Rock has been changing minds about the employability of people with disabilities for years, one company, one employee at a time. Its adult programs include a variety of job training curriculums that have helped many clients find their way into meaningful employment and greater independence.
“Our young adults tend to stay on the job for a long period of time,” said Jenny Adams, director of adult services. “One of our big goals is finding the right job match; we don’t just find a job to find a job, that isn’t the point of our program. We try to find the right job match, one that our young adults enjoy and fits their ability levels and their interest level, because we want them to stay in that position for longevity.
“As a result, we have young adults who are celebrating 10 years on the job, and they are just as happy 10 years later as they were on the first day on the job. We even have some graduates who have been so successful at their job that they now mentor others in their department, in a leadership position. It’s really come full circle in that sense.”
Access offers multiple programs that address job skills and employability. One, Project Search, matches participants with local businesses through internships. Typically utilizing the hospital setting, the intern gets to learn and experience different departments during the course of their experience. To date, the program has graduated 400 over the last decade, with current cohorts numbering about 80 individuals.
The program, which is active in Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Hot Springs, Pine Bluff and Camden as well as Little Rock, has been enormously successful. Adams said 93 percent of graduates find and hold a job, thanks to the internship’s real-world training and ongoing support from the organization. Clients can receive additional job readiness training as needed through the organization’s AccessLife campus-based program.
“After [Project Search participants] graduate in May, we work to help them find employment in the community, based on the skill set that they’ve learned,” Adams said. “The majority of them find work in the community and then our job shifts to provide what’s called follow-along or employment support. We go with them and help them during orientation and then we help them learn their new job.”
Adams said companies that are new to the program tend to have certain trepidation that comes from inexperience being around people with disabilities in a workplace. Access overcomes these objections by helping to create common understanding between the potential employer and the job applicant.
“We are very open from the beginning, which I think is helpful,” Adams said. “From the first moment of the interview, we introduce ourselves as Project Search and that this is a young adult with a disability. Another thing is, we help the young adult by giving them the chance to talk about themselves. It’s important for them to be able to advocate for themselves and what their strengths are and what their needs are. I think that helps set things up for success with the employers.”
Access also plays an active role in educating employers on the myths versus the realities of adding individuals with disabilities to their workforce. She said while some accommodation may be needed, it’s usually not as extensive as people expect.
“What’s really helpful is that our staff is onsite when the young adult starts the job, and they act as a job coach who works side-by-side with them,” she said. “We know the young adult well, we know what their needs are and we’re standing next to them as they start the job.
“We’re also able to see when accommodations are needed, and we can help communicate to supervisors what those needs are. They’re typically small things, such as maybe extra time to complete a task or an anti-fatigue mat to stand on. Or it could be the task just may not be the right task for them and so we explore if there are different areas that might be a better fit. Typically, employers are very willing to try something different.”
Adams said the graduates of the program have found a place in a variety of work settings, from hospitality and hospitals to fulfillment and distribution centers. She said with a little bit of vision and flexibility on the employer’s part, most employees adapt and do very well in employment, so much so that the program has become a model for other organizations across the country and internationally.
“Some employers are used to saying, ‘I want it this way, exactly this way, every time,’ because that’s what they expect of their other employees,” she said. “What they realize is, if they allow a little bit of flexibility something really great can happen. Some employers, they hire their first young adult from us and then they call back and say, ‘Do you have anyone else that we could hire?’ And they are more than willing to make the accommodations that they need, because that creates an employee that is valuable to their company.
“Employers who are willing to be a little flexible find an employee that’s really wonderful; one who will show up every day, on time, with a smile on their face and be happy to do what they do.”
For more information about community-based programming serving the formerly incarcerated, contact Restore Hope Arkansas (RestoreHopeAR.org). For more information on Project Search and other vocational programs, contact Access (AccessGroupInc.org).
