SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. — Mike Jenne takes his job as a van driver seriously; so seriously that he even lets his riders pick the music.

"I'm getting used to country music. That's not really my favorite, but I'm getting used to it," he laughed.

Every day, he drives his van more than 100 miles, helping a particular group of folks get to and from their jobs. A group that Jenne himself is a part of.

"I was having trouble finding the job because when I was younger, I did a bunch of things that I wasn't supposed to be doing, and a lot of people wouldn't accept the things that were on my record," he said.

Jenne is one of 77 million people in the country that have an arrest or conviction on their record. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, the unemployment rate for this population is 27% and 60% for folks up until four years after their release.

"I've since, I fixed those problems, and now, they're not an issue, but companies don't really understand that," he said. "That sort of hurts your pride."

These numbers are significant, but so are the statistics of our current labor shortage.

The Chamber says there are more than 10 million open jobs right now, but only 5.8 million unemployed people. Thanks to a number of factors, including pandemic-spurred early retirement and parents staying home due to a lack of child care, we're short 4 million people to fill jobs.

"It's just better to meet people where they're at and feel that they don't have to compromise their personal needs for their work needs," said Daryn Forgeron, who is a staff member at Working Fields.

It's a unique staffing agency in Vermont that helps folks with criminal records, or people struggling with homelessness, addiction mental illness, get on the right path to finding a job, with both community resources and peer support.

Historically, it's been tough work, but over the last year, they've noticed more employers asking for help.

"We've seen it kind of on the large scale in terms of just employers are more ready to partner with us. I think in the last year alone, we signed 35 new clients, which is incredible," she said. "There's more willingness to understand what we're talking about. There's a more openness of mind in terms of, 'Oh yeah, of course, there are people who are ready to work. I need them right now.'"

Tapping into a once-shunned workforce is good for business. The Center for Economic and Policy Research says that refusing to hire people with criminal records shuts the country out of up to $87 billion in annual GDP.

Eighty-five percent of HR leaders say second-chance hires perform the same or better than other employees.

"They'll show up as better work workers. They will be loyal, they will be punctual, they will be the things that you want when they can also be individually fulfilled," Forgeron said.

Jenne not only drives people who got a job through Working Fields to their jobs, but he also got back on his feet because of them. To him, it's way more than being about a company's bottom line, having someone take a chance on you is about building back up.

"I told them my situation and where I'm coming from, and they encouraged me and actually helped me recover," he said.

"We see you as a human being and not just the story that's been told about you... and employers are more willing to see that and employers are more willing to support that, and when they do, that person can build the life that they want and that is enormous," said Forgeron.

Our past is a part of our story, but for the people who believe it shouldn't always dictate our future, they hope that this pattern of employers taking chances on more folks continues well past the current worker shortage.

"Don't just look at the bad things. Look at their accomplishment, you know, just look beyond the mistakes," said Jeanne.

DENVER, Co. — Sean Holland has driven the same route for work every day for more than 20 years. He says it hasn't gotten boring yet.

"It's not your 9 to 5 job," Holland said. "If that's what you're looking for, this isn't it."

Holland is a UPS driver in suburban Denver. He took the job in the early '90s, and since 1995, he's been driving the same truck: Bertha.

"I've had her, next month, it will be 26 years," Holland said. "The old girl, she comes out full to the gills every day. I get rid of all that, and then we do another pickup run in the afternoon and fill it back up. There's a sense of accomplishment that goes along with that."

Holland and delivery drivers across the country were deemed essential workers at the height of the pandemic. Stay-at-home orders forced people to use delivery services at a higher rate. U.S. parcel volume went up 37% from 2019 to 2020.

UPS is hiring 100,000 seasonal workers this year to keep up with the demand as the holidays approach. But they are competing with other major companies in nearly every industry.

"We have a very robust recruiting approach," said Jeff Bloedorn, director of human resources at UPS. "We are heavily into the social media and making people aware of what UPS offers."

The company is starting some new hires at $23 an hour, with a $2,000 signing bonus. Bloedorn says there are other incentives, many of which can't be measured with dollars and cents.

"It’s a great teamwork atmosphere," Bloedorn said. "[People] like the hustle and bustle of moving all the packages... It’s a career that allows a person to take care of themselves and their family."

The pandemic has shifted a younger generation's opinion of work. A UPS survey found 9 in 10 millennials are "more open" to the types of jobs they'd accept.

But experts warn the life of a truck driver is still a difficult sell.

"I always ask my students this," said Dr. Robert Novack, a professor at Penn State University. "'How many of you would like to grow up and be a truck driver?' None of 'em."

Dr. Novack says the under-35 crowd is looking for fulfillment and purpose from a potential career. That can be tough to find from the driver's seat of a delivery truck.

"You see the rigs on the road, and as a car driver, they're an annoyance because they're big, they get in the way," Dr. Novack said. "We're working with some companies on trying to make the job of being a driver a little bit more suited to their needs. You know, treating them almost like an asset."

Holland agrees that the job can be tough.

"It's long hours, but like I said, it's rewarding," he said.

"I actually met my wife on my route out here," Holland said. "She was one of my customers for a couple years before we started dating, and ultimately got married, and now we’re married 21 years. You know, I've had dead-end jobs. And, yeah, I've been doing the same thing for almost 29 years now."

Holland smiled.

"But I love it."

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it will direct $100 million to the National Health Service Corps to help address the health care worker shortage.

Pulled from funding in the American Rescue Plan, the $100 million represents one of the nation’s biggest investments in a program that helps place primary care doctors in communities that have difficulty recruiting and retaining them. It's a five-fold increase from previous years, the Department of Health and Human Services said.

The National Health Service Corps offers loan repayments and scholarships to clinicians in exchange for multiple years of service in areas that have a health care provider shortage.

"Whether you're in rural America, or in a low income part of America, that shouldn't be a reason why you can't access good quality health care," Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a phone interview. "And so we want to help states that are going to try to do what they can to keep that public health workforce in those rural communities, those low-income communities, they're where people need them."

The announcement comes after the United States lost 17,500 health care employees in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With the industry's employment figures now sitting at just under 16 million, the agency reported the country has lost 524,000 health care employees since the start of the pandemic. Job losses in nursing, hospitals and residential care saw the biggest drops in the industry last month.

Losing employees has in turn increased labor costs. Hospitals and other medical facilities have had to sharply increase spending on recruiting and retaining employees, according to a report published last week by Moody's Investors Services. That has led to boosted benefit options and sign-on bonuses that can go well into five figures since the start of the pandemic.

“Covid has basically caused a laser focus on the glaring gaps and dysfunction across the American health care system,” said Tener Veenema, a scholar focused on workforce issues at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Health Security. “Making investments to redistribute health care providers into rural areas, low-resourced areas, is so important because we know how much they are suffering from a lack of access to good health care.”

States will be able to apply for grants until April and the Department of Health and Human Services predicts it will make up to 50 awards as high as $1 million per year over the course of four years.

Participating states won’t have to match funds or share costs in any way to obtain the grants, and they can use 10 percent of the award for administrative costs.

“With these funds, states can design programs that optimize the selection of disciplines and service locations, and tailor the length of service commitments to address the areas of greatest need in their communities,” said Diana Espinosa, the acting administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the program. “This investment will make a tremendous impact on access to primary care and addressing health disparities at a critical time.”

The project start date isn't until September 2022, so it won't have an immediate effect on the current labor shortage. It represents, however, the latest push by the Biden administration to address the issue that experts believe will only get worse over the next decade.

President Joe Biden pulled $100 million this year from the American Rescue Plan to support the Medical Reserve Corps, an all-volunteer army of doctors, nurses and medical support teams in hopes of accelerating the pace of Covid-19 vaccinations.

"A hundred-million dollars isn’t going to take care of everybody," Becerra admitted. "But it’s certainly going to go a long way in helping our state partners get resources to those local communities, so they can keep that health care worker there, keep them trained, ready and prepared to keep them healthy."