Veterans’ unemployment outpaces civilian rate

Source: Wash. Post

Despite the marketing pitch from the armed forces, which promises to prepare soldiers for the working world, recent veterans are more likely to be unemployed than their civilian counterparts.

Veterans who left military service in the past decade have an unemployment rate of 11.7 percent, well above the overall jobless rate of 9.1 percent, according to fresh data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The elevated unemployment rate for new veterans has persisted despite repeated efforts to reduce it.

The latest to attempt it is the White House. In the jobs package President Obama has been promoting across the country is a tax credit of up to $9,600 for each unemployed veteran a company hires.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/veterans-unemployment-outpaces-civilian-rate/2011/10/04/gIQAlqLepL_singlePage.html

while signing TRADE AGREEMENTS. WTF.

One downside of service is the huge amount of issues that somebody comes back from theater with... not just PTSD, but working in decentralized organizations, unregimented life, disruptions in their safety net, etc.

Oh, and the "prepare soldiers for the working world" routine is laughable. Ask just about any service member if their service training was directly useful for the working world, and they will likely laugh in your face.

I know that 4 people is a small sample size, but they're training and subsequent careers are hardly laughable. (My brother would have something to say about Army life though - he was too much of a hippie to last very long in the military, but he did learn how to weld and he's been a master welder for 15 years now).

Now then, I think offering tax credits for employers who hire veterans is a good start. These people have chosen to serve our country and they deserve whatever help we can offer them.

... when I left the Coast Guard in 1991 for medical reasons I could still work, but my skills as a Coxswain and eligibility to get a 100 ton Master's License wasn't very marketable considering my health issues. I was hired by a new, small, high-tech manufacturing company and they received a tax credit for hiring me. I did have to start at the bottom as an assembler and had to take many tech-school machinist classes to advance, but I did eventually become a CNC machinist in that union (UAW) shop and made pretty good money for that time. (After 8 years, though, my medical conditions became very acute and the VA eventually 'retired' me with their top compensation/medical care package)

the militarization of our police forces?

is the military has three kinds of jobs:

a job you can take directly to the civilian world, like a welder, a military police officer or a pilot
a job you can take to the civilian world with additional training or certification, like a truck driver
a job that only exists within the government, like an infantryman or an intelligence analyst

I put truck drivers in the "needs more training" because a military truck driver has a military driver's license, not a CDL. Since you've got no CDL and no record in HireRight's DAC database, a Marine Corps sergeant who's been driving truck for 10 years in the Corps is, to a civilian firm, exactly the same as a 21-year-old kid who's never driven anything bigger than a sedan.

And then there are guys like infantrymen. If you look at the Army's recruiting bullshit you see that an infantryman can take his skills into civilian life as a security specialist, police officer or many other worthwhile fields...problem is, if an infantryman wants to take his skills into the police business he has to start out just like a raw rookie cop. A grunt who retires at the age of 38 as a first sergeant really doesn't deserve to start as a rookie ANYTHING, but that's what he's got to do.

The answer is to make sure no soldier leaves the service without a marketable skill, and that's going to cost money.