What's Hampering Jobless Veterans

With veterans' unemployment rising, President Barack Obama is scheduled on Friday in a visit Washington's Navy Yard to announce initiatives to prepare vets for civilian jobs.

Those boomers born during WWII and in the few years directly after may or may not remember their childhood years, I do. What your parents, coming out of the military, no higher education needed to fight our wars, or moms coming out of the factories, quickly taught the jobs needed to work in by those who for many reasons couldn't serve in the military. You grew up into that working world that had quickly grown a prosperous middle class, and with usually small but regular raises and improved benefits and safety you were prospering better then your parents. That all started changing some thirty to forty years ago to growth at the top and wall street investing while the worker stopped sharing in the labors instead given easy, but costly, credit to make them think they were doing better then the generations previous.

The new capitalism was supposed to replace what started the ball rolling after that war, government investment into the returning soldiers and education, building the infrastructure of the modern world and helping innovators develop and grow with new or improving products and businesses, we were envied by the World as we even helped some of them rebuild after the destructive war in their countries.

The new capitalism was supposed to prevent wars and any need of government investment into the private sector, it was sold that way by that new huge wealth made off our generations wars, Korea and especially the longest, up till recently, occupation of Vietnam where many of us served. Not to many years after the new capitalism had it's start into growing the wealth at the top in a global economy to trickle down greasing the machines of economic growth and prosperity for all, that's how the con was sold!

To get back to the subject title, frankly the same issues hampering everyone, with for many but especially the older worker having added issues like long time experience meaning nothing and the experience of military service and structure the same.

As everyone keeps pushing the resume as the 'in' for jobs they really don't mean much nor do cover letters. Either those in an HR, 'human resource?' who the hell came up with that, not understanding what the real job requirements really mean because they've never held the positions especially in skilled trades or they run resumes through computer programs which cherry pick words within and reject if not there or frankly anyone even bothering to look at them. Add a once staple business need total lack of any contact, even by phone, to get a feel of the person applying. Paper pushers, probably with college decree's, pushing paper and using the words on or not on to decide who's qualified. You get what you get.

Another is the business community has changed to MBA's crunching numbers running the show and not an engineer or skilled worker mentality etc. more concerned with quality of product and consumer satisfaction thus growth from an expanding customer base and product loyalty in the company as well as the products.

August 1, 2011 - Some reports are surfacing about worsening employment numbers for veterans. This report claims that among all veterans the unemployment rate is 13% but it's nearly double that, 24%, for younger veterans. No wonder the military is having no problem meeting its retention goals.

There are several programs run by the federal government to insure veterans get a leg up on federal jobs. And the White House has teamed up with some movers and shakers in the private sector to put veterans into 100,000 available jobs. Nonetheless, almost one in four of our youngest returning veterans are jobless.

I had a conversation at a let's-fix-the-government type think-tank here in Washington last week during which one of the researchers asked me what I thought of veterans preference programs. You would think that the fact that I am job hunting right now (a fact unknown to the researcher) might have influenced my decision. But maybe not.

I said that sometimes I sensed a burgeoning culture of entitlement around service to country and wondered if it might occasionally tip the scales in favor of prior military service versus basic competence. In the wide-ranging conversation that followed, I added that I didn't think any serious scale-tipping went on.

But every time I board an aircraft and hear that our military in uniform board first, or go to a baseball game and suffer through Lee Greenwood's smarmy anthem “Proud to be an American” while the crowd offers a standing ovation to our brave service men and women, I wonder what's going on. read more>>>

Aug 4, 2011 - Army Officer Donna Bachler hasn't had a regular paycheck since she left active duty four years ago, even though she boasts the kind of skills employers vie for.

Bachler, 30, helped run the U.S. Army's postal service in Kuwait, tackling challenges such as how to crack down on mailed contraband and speeding the flow of mail to troops.

Now back in the United States, she gets by on her husband's salary, which will be cut by more than half when he retires from the military as soon as next year.

"One of the ways I sold (military service) to myself and my parents is 'it looks good on a resume,'" said Bachler, who estimates she has applied for at least 1,000 jobs since 2007. "Sadly, it doesn't."

As U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, tens of thousands of veterans are flooding the job market at a time when millions of civilians can't find jobs.

In June, unemployment among recent veterans grew to 13.3 percent, more than 4 percentage points higher than the national average.

 

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In the tight job market, recent veterans say they're passed over for jobs not because they are unqualified, but because they lack required credentials, a formal education or a way to describe their military skills that employers understand.

"I compare myself to civilians I know and I have had leadership opportunities -- making the hard choice -- that I don't see in my civilian counterparts," said David Nawrocki, a 30-year-old staff sergeant.

He ran an ammunition supply point in Afghanistan and, as a logistics coordinator in Washington, worked out ways to save the Army more than $1 million earlier this year.

"I don't know how to translate it into civilian terms," said Nawrocki, who joined the Army at 17 and hasn't finished college. read more>>>

Veterans come out of the Military with much more, and once respected, qualities that every business needs at the front end, much better for many jobs then a fresh college student who has little to no experience in the working world and the teamwork plus other ready needs. They also have their common sense and critical thought gifts much better enhanced thus learn what the jobs entail as well as what the company requires much faster as well as a wide variety of skills!

4 August 2011 - Bill Whitaker speaks with two soldiers from the Oregon National Guard's 41st Infantry Brigade. They, along with 50 percent of their combat team, returned home from duty to face unemployment. read more>>>

 

As I watch and listen to the so called experts, especially as related to what happened on Wall Street yesterday, all I do is shake my head as these 'experts?' try and lay blame everywhere else but at the real reason markets collapse as well as economies, the Failure of that new capitalism which has been collapsing for a long time but was really helped along by the total failed leadership during the previous administration and the lack of ideology and representation from a failed political ideology they still call new republicanism and new conservatism especially the conservatism which is found in the other political ideologies!

There's another big problem with many issues for many in the present time and economic troubles, no matter what's going on they can't stand having the first blackman, with the added issue of having a white mother, leading the country in the highest elected post! We would still be going through pretty much the same if the first woman elected, those two choices came about through a progressive ideology of it was time and they were both not only qualified but to a higher degree then the previous leader who thought he was some supper CEO but was a whiteman from a powerful family, and oh ya, a guy you'd like to have a beer with, Not.