Vets Returning Home to Unfriendly Job Market

From the Wall Street Journal | Aug 7, 2010 | By EMMELINE ZHAO

Short on Workplace Skills, Those Who Served in Military Since September 2001 Face Unemployment Rate of 11.8%

 

Veterans returning from overseas are encountering a particularly hostile job market these days.

While the 8.4% unemployment rate for veterans overall is lower than the 9.5% rate for the population as a whole, the jobless rate for veterans who served since September 2001 rose to 11.8% in July, the Labor Department said Friday. That's up from 11.5% the month before.

The unemployment rate among post-2001 veterans remains high because most are younger, lack workplace training and experience, and are in a period of flux as they transition from the armed forces, said Nathan Smith, deputy director of Hire Heroes USA, a nonprofit that helps veterans find work.

Matthew Litton served nine years in the Marine Corps before he left the military last May. The 28-year-old from Alexandria, Va., took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and later did two combat tours there.

Mr. Litton said he was treated for a traumatic brain injury, a back injury and has post traumatic stress disorder. Since he left the Marine Corps, he has applied for a long list of positions with private contractors as a security specialist, instructor or trainer close to home. But he has received offers only for positions that would involve working overseas again, he said.

"I got out to pursue other careers," he said. "I don't want to be deployed anymore, I did that for nine years, and that's the only positions people want veterans for—is to go back to Afghanistan or Iraq."

Mr. Litton is part of the largest pool of unemployed veterans who have served since September 2001, those aged 25 to 29, who make up 39% of the total. That group's unemployment rate is 14.9%. Employers have turned Mr. Litton down for positions because of his back injury and post traumatic stress disorder, he said. His unemployment benefits, which brought in half as much as he made while in the Marines, ran out in June.

Chad Robb, on the other hand, is a success story. An Air Force veteran, Mr. Robb has received two job offers since he earned his undergraduate degree in management in May. He left the military in May 2008 with a long-standing knee injury and paid for his degree with help from a modern-day version of the GI Bill.

Mr. Robb, a 36-year-old from Omaha, Neb., said he is holding out for better offers. One of the two he has received was taking hotel reservations on the graveyard shift and the other would clock 80 hours a week for a financial firm. "With my disability, that wouldn't be something I'd be looking for," he said.

Michelle Laret has faced a long and so far fruitless job hunt after ending a 14-year stint in the Marines in April. Ms. Laret, 33, blamed her lack of a bachelor's degree and work experience for her unemployment.

The military offers programs that would have helped her earn a degree while she was serving, but family needs and hours in the Marines left little time for school, she said. Her severance package is bringing in half of her former income and she feels stuck.

"Ruby Tuesday's won't hire me because they said I'm overqualified," she said. But she'd be happy to have a job there nonetheless. "I still have to put food on the table," she said.