Back in the World

Thousands of veterans return to the work force each month. Many have in-demand high-tech skills as well as so-called "soft skills" like being a team player and showing up on time. Getting to the office by 9 seems like vacation to people used to be awoken by reveille before dawn. Taking a look at Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, veterans in general have had a slightly lower unemployment rate than the general public for the last 20 years.

Buried in the mounds of BLS data, however, is a troubling trend: young male vets ages 20 to 24 had almost twice the rate of unemployment as their civilian counterparts. "There is an upward trend," says Charles Ciccolella, assistant secretary of Labor for veterans employment and training. "I'm concerned about it."

But Ciccolella has an explanation or two. He says that many young soldiers are only temporarily out of work because they need some readjustment time to go from Mosul to Main Street or because they will be going on to college. Most have never even looked for work outside the military so the job search can be a little slow. They know RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) better than resumes.

For some vets, the issue is underemployment not unemployment. Sammy Perkins would like to get a permanent job making more than his current $6 an hour as a dishwasher, but the transition to civilian life after a 21-year career in the Army and Navy has been difficult. When he signed up with a local temp agency in Charleston, S.C., he spelled out his last name in military alphabetic code: Papa-Echo-Romeo-Kilo-India-November-Sierra. The woman at the agency looked at him like he was nuts. Perkins recently got a bachelor's degree, but even with all his experience and his education, he says he has found a cultural bias against hiring military service members. "They think all we can do is pushups," Perkins says.

To ease the transition for both young vets and career military personnel like Perkins, the Labor department along with the VA and the Department of Defense run the Transition Assistance Program (TAPS). The four-day class helps active-duty military personnel write resumes and prepare for interviews. Since September 11, more than a half a million people have used it.

Mike Dodd, who left the Marine Corps in 2000 after one too many knee injuries from jumping out of planes, says TAPS is lost on a lot of young military retirees. "They are thinking, 'I'm a gun fighter. I'm going to go out into the world and do great things. I don't care about resumes'," he explains. He learned the reality of the business world the hard way. Like a lot of service members, he low-balled his requested salary because he forgot to factor in all the things in military life that are subsidized.