Employers from the county are being encouraged to help support research into hiring people with convictions.
The research by criminology students at Nottingham Trent University aims to measure current levels of interest and openness to employing prison leavers across a range of job sectors and explore business concerns and barriers to employing prison leavers.
It also seeks to explore what forms of support could be introduced to encourage more willingness from businesses to employ prison leavers; and analyse whether attitudes differ across different industries and sectors.
A spokesperson said: “According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), a third of businesses in the UK state they are unable to address skills gaps in their workforce. Yet, despite the effort and resources being pumped into education, training and employment for prisoners, there are still barriers that exist which seem to be preventing qualified and motivated prison leavers from gaining skilled jobs in many industries and sectors.
“The purpose of this research is to explore and understand attitudes toward employing prison leavers.”
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