williams_10.html
At the end of 2011 the national unemployment rate was near 9 percent.
For already hard-to-employ job seekers, the unemployment rate is much higher.
The Job Circle is a new, volunteer effort to help hard-to-employ populations in Chicago.
The Job Circle connects these populations with job leads.
Hard-to-employ adults include the long-term unemployed who can legally work in the U.S., who can live independently, and share any of these attributes:
- have little education
- have been under-employed for many years
- have obstacles to employment
What role does the Job Circle play?
It is a project to help the long-term unemployed land jobs.
It connects people with job leads.
It supports established activities in this field.
Since 2008 I've run monthly workshops in south Chicago for ex-felons, welfare-to-work, and other hard-to-employ adult populations which prepare them to return to work.
At the community center on South Kedzie I instruct some 15 to 25 men and women a month. Subjects we learn and practice include basic computer skills, job interview techniques, and job retention lessons.
A felony conviction, no big surprise, is a serious obstacle to employment. It comes up frequently, but not always, in this population of job seekers.
These men and women, the students in my workshops, are each very real people with real problems and real aspirations. At the Handel's Messiah concert I ushered at yesterday I was talking with a retired school teacher who told me she wouldn't teach ex-felons. I told her about the hundreds I've met in the past few years and how they've opened my eyes. These guys and ladies want to join the mainstream of society. They want a steady job. They want a normal life. She thought about it.
What can you do? When the subject comes up, can you say an encouraging word about hiring an ex-felon -- perhaps someone with something as simple as a drug offense -- who has paid his or her debt to society, remained lawful, and kept out of trouble for many years? You'd be surprised to learn that a regular person, just like you or me, with a felony conviction for drugs or alcohol, can be locked out of the employment picture for decades.
Keep in mind please that drugs and alcohol are easy to relate to but adults with other convictions have the same problem. They've paid their debt, now what else do we want from them? I think you'd agree that, within reason, a person who has served his sentence and has remained clear of any additional legal problems for, let's say, five years, deserves a chance.
I'm available to speak to your group on this subject. I'm very passionate about it. If you bring this up, please remember that the people I wish to talk to are professionals and working people. (Not the hard-to-employ; I talk with plenty of them every week. They already know me!)
Believe it or not the greatest thing you can help the Job Circle with is a job lead. I know other people ask so much of you and it's hard to believe this is all I need. Let me explain.
In Chicago proper or the collar suburbs, at your place of work, when the subject comes up and the job position involves general labor or minimum wage, can you suggest one of my clients?
That's all. If your people agree please contact me with the necessary information and I will send as few, or as many, candidates as you require.
Now I realize full well this might be more involvement than you anticipated. I actually don't need leads from the help-wanted signs you see driving around town. You have access to a, so to speak, hidden job market that's invisible to people who toil in the field of helping hard-to-employ populations get to work. Can you spare a job position for an ambitious person with a heavy burden?
So thanks and I'll be looking forward to hearing from you. In the Job Circle those of us blessed with freedom and skills will wrap our arms and hearts around the less fortunate, but ambitious, and by lifting them we will lift all of us up.
Thanks,
Charles Williams