Opening New Doors for Veterans in the Workplace
By: Lanän Clark
Unemployment is still a major economic issue that faces our communities there is one specific pool of underemployed, in particular, who should not be – not only because they are highly skilled, but also because of the debt of gratitude we as a nation owe them in serving our country. This group is military veterans. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, veterans who served during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had an unemployment rate of 9 percent in 2013, compared to 7.2 percent of non-veterans.
Now the problem isn’t the fact that companies do not want to hire military veterans. They do and some of the top reasons companies hire veterans include leadership, teamwork skills, character, discipline, resiliency, and loyalty, according to a 2012 report which interviewed a variety of American businesses. Continue reading