Guard helps returning troops find work - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Guard helps returning troops find work

Leaders of the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team grew worried when a survey given to the Florida Guard unit midway through their yearlong Iraq deployment showed that 35 percent of the soldiers didn’t have a job waiting for them on their return home.

Guard officials didn’t want to find more than a third of their soldiers returning to a struggling job market to find themselves in the unemployment lines after about 2,500 of them transitioned back to civilian life, said Maj. Gen. Emmett Titshaw, the Florida adjutant general.

Guard units have a certain motivation to find their soldiers jobs. If the Guard doesn’t help them find employment, the soldiers are forced to move elsewhere and leave the Guard, the adjutant general said.

“It’s a readiness issue for us because if they can’t find a job in Florida, oftentimes they will move to where the jobs are and we’ll lose them,” Titshaw said.

The Florida Guard unit contacted the Florida Agency for Workforce Integration, and together the organizations formed a job task force to work with soldiers and family members in helping them find jobs.

Since members of the 53rd BCT started returning in November to Fort Stewart, Ga., to demobilize, career counselors with the Defense Department’s Employer Partnership Program have been provided to the soldiers. Others can log onto computer terminals at Fort Stewart where soldiers search a database of jobs.

Soldiers also can use the database at home on the Employer Partnership Program’s new website launched on Veterans Day. About 1,200 employers have registered in the program and listed job openings.

For many soldiers, this is the first time they have written a résumé or gone on job interviews because they enlisted right out of high school. Titshaw said these soldiers have taken advantage of help building their résumés and matching military skills with jobs in the civilian world.

It’s not limited to soldiers. Their families can also use the jobs database and the same tools to find a job, Titshaw said.

“A lot of family members, especially those who have a spouse deployed, are having trouble finding a job, too. We want to make sure we help them,” he said.

More than 4,000 veterans and service members have found jobs though the Employment Partnership Program since the DoD effort began two years ago. It’s too early to tell how many have found jobs through the Florida program, officials say.

Maj. Gen. Keith Thurgood, Army Reserve deputy chief, said the Guard and Reserve have a responsibility to helping soldiers connect with employers, especially in a sluggish job market.

“The unemployment situation in some states is desperate,” Thurgood said. “If you look at the demographics for 18-to 29-year-olds, it’s higher than the average. We need to help our soldiers.”

When Thurgood speaks to employers, he said, he stresses to them the responsibilities that soldiers learn in the service and the unique skill sets they can bring to them. Most often, those employers are receptive despite the prospect of losing a soldier for a year at a time to deployments.

As long as employers have enough warning of an upcoming deployment, most are supportive, Thurgood said.

“What I tell them is that I’m going to bring someone who has an immediate impact to your business,” he said.