By Nupur Anand
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) on Wednesday said it may commit $60 million to Concordance, a nonprofit organization that helps workers with criminal records re-enter the workforce.
The bank is focused on providing financial support to the program, but it could consider hiring individuals with criminal records in the future, said William Daley, Wells Fargo's vice chairman of public affairs.
"We are generally focused on providing support for housing, financial literacy, sustainability, and this is outside our wheelhouse but it is an important issue and deserves attention," Daley said.
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) runs a similar initiative, Second Chance, to sign up new employees with criminal records. Ten percent of new hires annually in the U.S. have previous convictions with no bearing on their role, the bank has said.
Companies have been advocating hiring individuals with criminal records both in a bid to give them another opportunity and also to cope with a shortage in the labor force. Certain estimates suggest that about a quarter of the U.S. population is left out of the talent pool due to criminal records.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative, more than 1 million people are held in state penitentiaries, of which 71% will be re-arrested within three to five years after committing additional offenses. Once they are imprisoned, they will be re-imprisoned on average seven times in their lifetimes.