Veterans Employment Breakdown - How will this change as the military downsizes?

This whole effort deserves a double thumbs-up. I'm convinced key to solving the veteran employment issue lies in veterans helping other veterans. We must help ourselves and in so doing - each other.

The more I digest the infograph, in particular the 9% veteran unemployment, which for vets 18-26 is closer to 20%+, the more I am hurt by this (some folks think it's hard to be a vet at 18 or 19, but they exist...i.e. wounded early in career, early discharge for myriad of reasons, etc).

I started brainstorming what resources could the DoD, DoL, and DVA provide to help vets. And after I brainstormed, I discovered the vast majority I, as a layperson came up with, already existed, such as the website below. But when I went to my Transition Assistance Program classes, I don't remember being pointed to the American Job Center. I didn't think there was a local resource on the ground, basically wherever I went in the country.

As CPT Dave Shephard pointed out, it's not really a severe lack of government programs. It's more in our execution. It's more in our leaders lacking a general interest and enthusiasm for launching warriors back into the private sector.

Remember the active/reserve/guard force is 2.4M, while the U.S. work force is 155M+. I love the force as much as anyone else, but after service, it's critically important that we transition stellar citizens back into the 155M strong work force.

Currently the DoL budget for TAPS, Transition GPS, whatever we're calling it these days is $14M for the 300,000 service members transitioning this year, or $47 / member, which I assume is slightly less than we spend recruiting and training members (DoD ad spend in 2011 was $667M). The DVA and DoD chip in a little bit as well, but no where near enough.
Going back to brainstorming.
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Maj Ahron Oddman has a great point. I have been addressing this issue as I transitioned into the civilian sector. Unfortunately, there isn't an easy answer. There are thousands of Veteran help sites, careers sites, so-called "experts" floating around. They all mean well, but it's information overload to transitioning Veterans. Any program that becomes successful are 1. taken over by the government and become useless or 2. become so large they can't move quickly enough to address market and demographic changes.

One solution is easier said than done. Education is key for Veterans and employers alike. Veterans should research what skills they posses and look for companies that hire for those skills. On the flip side to that coin (and arguably far more important) companies should research MOSs and target those Veterans.

A long time ago in a blog post far away I wrote about it/ http://goo.gl/FAhi05

But sadly when I wrote that post it was the trend in HR and has almost been forgotten. It's easy to talk about, but not so easy to sustain. Companies don't want to start entire campaigns and programs because the ROI is not as big (or not there at all).

There isn't an easy fix, but I will always look to hire Veterans and figure a way to work Veteran recruitment into my metrics. No ticker-tape parade needed. Just execution.

Cheers,

Arron