E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Ken Matos, Senior Director of Employment Research and Practice for Families and Work Institute, says veterans can bring unique skills to the workplace, but may require help translating their military experience into civilian terms.
Veteran unemployment remains persistently high, 10.8 percent for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That's well above the official rate of 7.8 percent.
It's a national tragedy that those who served our country now find themselves struggling to convince a manager to let them serve burgers. What can vets seeking jobs do better, and what can employers looking to hire them do to make it easier to integrate ex-military into the workplace?
Policy-makers and employers are taking notice of these troubling questions.
This week Wal-Mart announced they're projecting to hire 100,000 veterans over the next five years. That news kicked off our TODAY Money live online reader chat this week with Ken Matos, Senior Director of Employment Research and Practice for Families and Work Institute, a think tank that studies and supports the workplace, including veteran employment, and offers online resources for veterans and employees.
TODAY: Why would Wal-Mart jobs be attractive to veterans? After fighting for our country, trading camo fatigues for a blue polo seems like a demotion.
MATOS: Many veterans are looking to build a civilian resume and Wal-Mart and retail can be a good place to start that process. One major issue that veterans face in this process is finding the language to describe their military experiences in civilian terms.
Leave a Comment:
It would be interesting to know what specific skills the vets bring to the table in relation to the available jobs. Obviously the soft skills, like commitment and others are there but if you spent 5-10 years on the ground in battlezones it would be hard to develop skills specific to a lot of available jobs.
Shame on you Trevor/ What an elitist attitudeyou have. The only people in this country who should make a living wage are colleg educated for layers, doctors CEO's? My son is a veteran. He can fix almost anything,can fix car things, do construction, has a aptitude for practical things and has a great work ethic. And if more companies put in time to train workers our society would be in better shape. It battlezones they learn strategy, people skills and observation. Our military people are protecting YOUR freedoms and safety. Should they be discarded like unwanted dogs when their use to you is done. There are many people in the working world like sports players paid very well for not a lot os skills except physical ablilties.
Sorry, I agree with Trevor...no skills that compare to available jobs. Yeah teamwork and following instrucitons are nice, but everyone must have at least those skills to keep a job anywhere. Vets come home with so many stress related problems that they hadicapped in the job market.
Bad headline. The "ultimate sacrifice" refers to one's life. There are indeed no jobs, nor have there ever been, for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
Thank you, Scuromondo, for addressing that error.
We shouldn't shame people in to hiring anybody.
Young people out of high school join the service for both a job and an adventure, the
young people that choose to go to work in the market rather than for the
government should deserve respect as well, because these people that don't take
the opportunity to join the service or go to college have a very tough time
making ends meet on their own. This isn't a militant country, this is a
capitalist country (I personally don't care for capitalist title, I prefer Honorable title, but will take some time) and our military is part of what keeps the wheels turning,
certainly serving in our military is an honor and those that do usually make a career
of it, but we only need so many soldiers at different times as does the market,
and you can't replace a worker because there's a young person that served their
country and we must make room for them now they need in the work force. It’s a
tough market and getting even tougher and that’s partly due to our military,
the safer the world is and companies feel they can go elsewhere to produce
their goods cheaper, the harder it will be for all of us. Most like to purchase goods at lower prices and as a result are seeing their income being reduced and not giving any incentive for companies to keep their companies in the states. It will simply mathematically balance out, if you want less-lower paying jobs, then purchase goods made outside of the states. The more that comes out of our paychecks for: Taxes, Insurance, health+auto+home+life, Transportation, Electricity, Communication, Food, Housing, the less there is for vacations or weekend recreation, if you even get a weekend off anymore? So demand less, pay less, need less and want less, but of course expect more. We'll see how this Algerian BP attack turns out; it could
send companies back to the protection of the states.
I disagree completely when stating that what they do in the field cannot translate to a civilian resume. Service members have a difficult time translating their experience to civilian terms while employers don’t understand how to translate military experience. A new site solves this problem. is changing the way that employers find talented veterans. HirePurpose is a job matching site (similar to what e-Harmony does). The employer needs to see the 'real person' and not just their resume. This is accomplished through an assessment for the candidate and short questionnaire for the employer, giving each the ‘best fit’ for the positions available. Hopefully this will begin to assist veterans returning from making the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom and their country.