Veteran's Job Market

Veteran's Job Market

Introduction

The men and women who retire from military service are categorized as veterans and with that status come expectations, both implied and statutory, that certain rights, privileges, and benefits will be granted for the sacrifices they made while serving their country. The Department of Veteran Affairs had estimated that more than 200,000 service members, enlisted and officer would retire from military duty each year. That estimate has doubled with 400,000 service members now projected to retire or separate from military service, most of whom expecting to find new employment. In the United States many individuals usually consider retiring from the workforce between 65 and 70 years of age. A vast majority of military retirees do not fit into these age groups and are often too young to consider removing themselves from the active workforce. On average, an enlisted service member is 38 to 40 years of age at retirement and an officer, 42 to 46 years of age. The opportunity to continue working is made even more attractive to eligible veterans who benefit from federal statutes and policies that mandate preference in hiring for federal civil service positions. Therefore, all the issues and aspects related to assisting veterans in entering the job market will be discussed in detail.

Background of the Issue

To boost employment opportunities for disabled veterans, preferential hiring was introduced during the Civil War and evolved exponentially in practice by the end of World War II. As the United States' largest employer, the federal government exercised its power to define and shape public policy. Government emphasis resulted in the milestone passage of the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944. The intent of this act was to assist veterans in their military-to-civilian transition by ensuring fair and equitable treatment when competing for jobs opportunities with federal government agencies. The government's efforts to assist veterans in finding jobs were fraught with good intentions. No literary evidence was found proving that when enacted, these laws would impose consequences on those they were put in place to support. Despite this unknown, the literature reviewed evidenced that over the years there were reported concerns from veterans and veteran groups that there were fallacies in the federal government's hiring process. These concerns contributed to studies that were conducted to determine the progress federal agencies had made in executing the laws and policies established to protect and assist veterans during their military-to-civilian transition (Adler, 2006).

Various factors related to Veteran's Career

Unintended consequences are the actions of people, especially government, that have negative or positive effects; unanticipated or unintended that differs from the expected outcome. One could make the assumption that the intended consequence of granting preferential hiring to veterans was that the American workplace would embrace the need to assist veterans in reestablishing themselves as active members of the civilian workforce. However, government programs that favored one group over another, e.g., veterans' preference, came under criticism and caused unexpected public response. Because of the number and duration of military deployments supporting ...