The article seems weirdly insistent on dividing things into "left-wing vs right-wing", but I guess the takeaway is: many companies claimed they weren't hiring because they couldn't find talent. Recently, these companies began hiring ex-convicts, a policy which they presumably weren't exercising before. Presumably these workers are cheaper to hire, while still having the necessary skills. So the conclusion is that companies weren't hiring not due to a lack of available skill, but due to a lack of available _affordable_ skill. I'm not sure what's enlightening about this - supply availablity isn't usually presented as a binary exists/doesn't exist thing, but as how much exists for a given price (especially given that workers can often be trained, for a price). So when companies claim there's not enough supply of talent, implicit in that statement to begin with is "[given our budget]". As might be obvious, I'm not sure what this article is trying to get at.