United States Veterans share a very similar unemployment
rate as the general population – just about a percentage point above the
national average. What sets them apart is the types of jobs they are able to obtain in a civilian setting.
What ultimately breaks my heart is that these men and women gave everything,
put their lives on the line, and held jobs so specialized and so unique, yet
they are unable to find jobs that are well-suited for the skills they bring to the table.
In my research, I found men and women who had been linguists
and strategists in very high-security positions, but, in the civilian
workforce, they ended up holding jobs that required only manual labor and required no strategy and little effort.
While I found many veterans who were merely thankful to have
jobs, many felt demeaned in menial jobs – being trained on simple cashiering
systems when they were used to advising and briefing high-ranking members of
the military seemed to be so much of a demotion that they hardly could stand it.
The disconnect I found was that most veterans were unable to identify
some of their most marketable skills because they either were unable to
separate their individual accomplishments from those of their military team or that they were unable to translate very marketable skills into civilian terms on resumes.
I strongly believe this lack of meaningful employment
contributes to that staggering suicide statistic cited by the Department of
Veterans Affairs of 22 veterans per day.
I tried to research the tools available to veterans when I
worked on this article for VFW Magazine.
Click on the link to read the full article and learn more about veteran employment.
