Job seekers with criminal records, particularly those who were once incarcerated, often have trouble securing employment.

The National Employment Law Project estimates that nearly 700,000 individuals are released from incarceration each year. Those who re-enter the job market experience discrimination in the recruiting process, making it more difficult to return to a normal life.

While businesses may remain ambivalent about hiring these workers, a recent report by Indeed showed that employees are becoming more open-minded about working alongside people with prior convictions.

In a survey of more than 1,000 workers from jobs site Indeed:

• 92 percent said that they are comfortable working alongside a co-worker who has a nonviolent criminal record.
• 91 percent said that providing fair job opportunities to individuals with a criminal record is essential to society.
• 73 percent would prefer to work for a company with fair-chance hiring practices.

"We are encouraged to see that employees are overwhelmingly supportive of fair-chance hiring practices and even say that a company's practices in this area would influence their decision to work there," said Abbey Carlton, vice president of social impact for Indeed.

Nearly 70 percent of employees would still feel comfortable working alongside an individual who had multiple nonviolent incidents on their record, the survey showed. And 66 percent agreed that they'd feel comfortable working with someone with a single, isolated incident on...

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