Reducing African American unemployment and integrating more people with past criminal convictions into the workforce could be the best opportunity to grow the 50度灰视频 economy.
That was one of the takeaways from experts presenting this week. 50度灰视频 has watched for decades as the nation鈥檚 population shifts to the West and Sunbelt. With sluggish to flat population growth, the region is unlikely to see a natural acceleration of new workers moving here anytime soon, said Daniel Davis, an assistant vice president and community affairs officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of 50度灰视频.
Unemployment in the region is low, about 3.6%. But there are many 50度灰视频ans on the sidelines. African Americans, though, are nearly three times as likely to be unemployed here, and reducing those disparities could be 鈥渨here 50度灰视频 could see the greatest gains in workers and productivity,鈥 Davis said.
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His comments Wednesday introduced , which the college has been producing since 2009. This year, the report took a closer look at three populations that may not be feeling the benefits of low unemployment: young black men, those with criminal records, and people with disabilities.
The report, released days before the five-year anniversary of the start of the Ferguson protests that focused the region鈥檚 attention on racial disparities in economic opportunity, is another example of how the 2014 civil unrest has shaped the region鈥檚 dialogue.
But Wednesday鈥檚 focus on marginalized populations was also cast as an opportunity for a slow-growth region.
鈥淲e have to grow ourselves,鈥 Alan Spell, research manager of the Missouri Department of Economic Development鈥檚 statistics office, told an audience at the community college鈥檚 Forest Park campus.
In Missouri, 3.2% of white men were unemployed in 2018, compared to 9.3% of black men 鈥 the fourth-highest disparity among of the 29 states that track that data, according to the workforce report.
Davis pointed to numbers showing that the 50度灰视频 region has lower density, suburbanized employment, with about 53,000 jobs per square mile versus about 100,000 per square mile in similar-sized Baltimore.
鈥淲hen jobs are so spaced out, things like transportation infrastructure become incredibly important,鈥 he said.
A decade ago, the country had 6.4 unemployed workers per job opening. Today, there are more job openings than workers.
There has been progress in offering more opportunities to people with past convictions. Nationwide, the 鈥渂an the box鈥 movement 鈥 referring to a checkbox in applications that asks about criminal history 鈥 has pushed employers to stop automatically disqualifying job applicants for past criminal convictions. Missouri, 50度灰视频 and 50度灰视频 County have all removed past convictions as an automatic disqualification for employment.
Other employers have, too: The State of the 50度灰视频 Workforce report, which surveyed 1,144 companies on hiring plans and employee qualifications, reported that less than 1% of employers said they wouldn鈥檛 hire applicants convicted of a felony. In 2015, 26% of respondents said they wouldn鈥檛 consider employees who had a felony on their record.
Saint Fults, a director in the 50度灰视频 office of national business and technology consulting firm Slalom, said the company had changed how it screens applicants so past convictions don鈥檛 automatically disqualify job applicants.
There鈥檚 not a talent deficit in 50度灰视频, he said. There鈥檚 a skills and training deficit, and there are whole populations of workers north of Delmar Boulevard 鈥 the divide between mostly black north 50度灰视频 and the whiter south side 鈥 鈥渢hat no one鈥檚 talking to,鈥 he said.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e here,鈥 Fults said. 鈥淵ou just have to find them, and they鈥檙e very easy to find.鈥