Report: More younger veterans land federal jobs - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Report: More younger veterans land federal jobs

A new Labor Department report finds that veterans of the post-9/11 Iraq and Afghanistan era are far more likely than nonveterans to find work with the government, especially with the federal government.

Thirty percent of employed veterans who served in the military since 2001 have public-sector jobs, compared with 15 percent of nonveterans, according to a Labor Department report issued Friday.

Sixteen percent of employed Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans work for the federal government, compared with 2 percent of nonveterans from the same age group, the report says. The other 14 percent of Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans work in state and local government jobs.

This appears to be a sign that efforts in recent years by the federal Office of Personnel Management to expand government employment opportunities for veterans are working.

The fact that veterans are finding federal jobs is one of the few bright spots in the report, which shows that the unemployment rate for this new era of veterans was 11.5 percent last year, higher than the 9.4 percent national average.

The unemployment rate for all veterans was 8.7 percent last year.

Age and disabilities could be part of the reason that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are having problems finding jobs.

The report says 25 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans had service-connected disabilities, and that those with disabilities are less likely to be employed, just as in the private sector. One in five employed disabled veterans works for the federal government.

Among young veterans ages 18 to 24, the report says the unemployment rate for males is 21.9 percent, but that is only slightly greater than the 19.7 percent unemployment rate for male nonveterans of the same age.