Veterans are finally getting the employment they deserve, and it's coming from a variety of industries.
In April, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the Joining Forces initiative, a new commitment with the private sector to train or hire 90,000 veterans and military spouses. The initiative's focus is on the energy, tech and transportation industries, which are most in need of the kind of highly proficient skills veterans bring to the table. According to Forbes, nearly half of the commitments were to train veterans for lucrative careers in high-tech employment with the support of educators and employers nationwide.
Those commitments, along with legislation passed in the last few years, have been making a positive impact. Forbes, citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics' September jobs data, reported that the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans had fallen to the lowest level ever recorded since the federal government began to track that population of veterans. The unemployment rate for veterans is actually slightly lower than it is for unemployed non-veterans.
A recent CareerBuilder survey found that 38 percent of employers will be eagerly recruiting veterans well into 2016. That is a dramatic improvement over the 27 percent recorded in 2013 and the 33 percent of employers actively hiring veterans in 2014. Forty-seven percent of employers reported that they had hired a veteran within the last year.
Rosemary Haefner, CareerBuilder's chief human resource officer, said that "Over the past few years companies have focused heavily on marketing their veteran hiring initiatives, which was necessary and has paid off." However, Ms. Haefner cautioned that "employers may still not understand the skills veterans had in the military, which may land them in positions that don't use all their skills and not get them the higher salary levels that they deserve."
About one-third of employed veterans surveyed by CareerBuilder reported that they were underemployed, whereas 65 percent said they were satisfied with the jobs they'd earned in their life after military service.