But as the local labor pool kept shrinking, it became harder to rule out a group of potential — albeit unconventional — workers. Mr. Wynne runs Emerge Community Development, a Minneapolis nonprofit that helps people with criminal records or other difficulties find jobs. In the past, Mr. Wynne said, companies saw working with Emerge mostly as a form of public relations. “We see employers really knocking on the door of our organization in a way that we haven’t seen in probably 20 years,” Mr. Wynne said. As employers dip deeper into the pool of available labor, workers are coming off the economy’s sidelines.

Source: New York Times January 13, 2018 14:15 UTC