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Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings Abound



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Housing was hard to get. Mr. Jarrett owed child support. And despite a vibrant labor market, he struggled to piece together a living, finding employers hesitant to offer him full-time work that paid enough to cover his bills.“One night somebody from my past called me, man, and they offered me an opportunity to get back in the game,” he said — with options like “running scams, selling drugs, you name it.”One reason he resisted, Mr. Jarrett said, was his decision a few weeks earlier to sign up for a program called Persevere, out of curiosity.Persevere, a nonprofit group funded by federal grants, private donations and state partnerships, focuses on halting recidivism in part through technical job tr …

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