Veteran Hiring has Increased

According to Federal News Radio, almost three in every 10 new employees in the government is a veteran of the United States Armed Forces.

There is a 24 member cabinet level and independent agency council known as the President’s Council on Veterans Employment. The council released on Tuesday a preliminary fiscal 2011 employment report that shows the government is hiring veterans at a percentage that is at its highest in over 20 years.

As the government hires fewer people overall, the percentage of veterans being hired by the government is at 28.5 percent out of all new employees. The Veterans Employment Initiative was launched by President Barack Obama in 2009, and the 28.5 percent marks a steady increase since then. The initiative was created with the purpose of encouraging agencies to hire veterans, make the hiring process simpler, and aiding veterans into civilian employment.

The United States Government has launched a marketing campaign and a website for agencies to access when hiring employees. Quite a few agencies have started program offices that focus on veteran employment. Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry said that the data proves that initiative is successful. Berry released a written statement:

“The President’s Council on Veterans Employment established and pursued aggressive goals, and for our veterans, meeting those goals means jobs that serve the American people and help sustain the growth that supports the propriety and leadership in the world,” he said. “I’m proud of the Council’s success in keeping these highly trained and experienced individuals working for our nation, particularly the over one million who served in Iraq.”

Since 2001, close to 12 percent of veterans who have left active duty are unemployed. This number is compared with the nine percent of the overall adult population that is unemployed in the United States. These numbers are provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Data, which is preliminary, shows that all of the agencies except for two of them have surpassed their 2009 base percentages. Those two agencies are the Treasury and the Homeland Security Departments. One agency in the country failed at meeting its base for hiring disabled veterans and that agency is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Office of Personnel Management tracks hiring on a federal level of veterans and disabled veterans on a separately. Until veterans make up at least a quarter of newly hired employees, agencies are expected to continue their percentages. The agencies are also supposed to take action to retain veterans.

“There’s a great fear — an unfounded fear that every veteran will have [post-traumatic stress disorder] or a traumatic brain injury,” Lisa Stern, a workforce and diversity consultant, explained to Federal News Radio.

Stern also said that the majority of veterans with those injuries do not have problems working in civilian jobs. Veterans that do have those problems might benefit from working remotely.