Natalie Bailey/MNS
Timothy Embree and Mark Walker present veterans’ employment needs to representatives Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Gus Bilirakis, members of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, Thursday.
WASHINGTON — Through this period of continued economic hardship and joblessness, employers need little reason to turn a candidate away. For some, a link to the military is enough.
“Civilian employers are increasingly not hiring those in service,” Capt. Marshall Hanson said Thursday during a House subcommittee hearing on the status of veteran employment.
An employer’s misconception of post-traumatic stress disorder, fear that a reservist will be deployed or ignorance of how military job skills translate into the civilian world are all obstacles of the job search today’s veterans have to navigate, panelists said.
The military needs to translate its persuasive enlistment campaigns into the widespread marketing of veterans’ skills to employers, said Justin Brown of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Holding up a copy of the March issue of Fortune magazine which features the story, “Why companies like Wal-Mart, Pepsico, and GE are recruiting the military elite,” Raymond Jefferson, assistant secretary of Veterans’ Employment and Training Services, said he envisions an increased engagement with the private sector. “We should be talking to rooms full of employers instead of one on one,” he said.
But the government could do its part to hire more veterans as well.
“Remove those employed by VA and DOD and there aren’t a whole lot of veterans working in the government,” said Timothy Embree of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Phil Rones, deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, tempered alarmingly high veteran unemployment numbers by taking a broader look. They’re not that different from non-veterans, he said.
“Recent press reports have noted the high unemployment rate for 18 to 24-year-old male Gulf War era II veterans, 21.6 percent in 2009,” Rones said in his remarks Thursday. “This is slightly higher than the rate for nonveterans of that age [19 percent].”
But for Brown, the standard for employment among veterans should be higher than breaking even with nonveterans.
“One unemployed veteran is too many,” he said.
There was a general consensus that the Post-9/11 GI Bill needs improvement. Several groups called for it to include on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs. As it currently stands – and unlike the previous GI Bill – the Post-9/11 bill only approves education if it is done at a place of higher learning.
However, without a widespread understanding of what the GI Bills or other policies allow for and offer, opportunities can be lost.
“We need a nationwide educational program about hiring programs,” said Richard Daley, associate legislative director of Paralyzed Veterans of America.
And so, with any program, new or old, it all comes down to one simple concept: public information.