Recent veterans’ jobless rate on par with civilians

Rate now almost identical to civilians

Programs have helped Iraq, Afghanistan war vets prep for job search.

An era of high unemployment for those who served during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars appears to be over, according to federal statistics showing jobless rates for those veterans are now on par with civilians.

The unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans was lower in October — at 4.6% — than the national average of 5%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That percentage was the lowest for the group since October 2007, when it was at 4.4% two months before the recession began.

There were 1.5 million veterans of the two wars in 2007. Today, there are 3.8 million.

“They’ve certainly come out of the kind of hangover of the postrecession period, and they now seem to be improving on par with the rest of the workers in the country,” said James Borbely, an economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics who studies veteran data. “It’s improvement in employment. It’s not the case where they’re dropping out of the labor force.”

Monthly jobless rates for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans climbed as high as 15% in 2010 and 2011, according to the data. For those between the ages of 18 and 24, it was even higher. Federal jobs data show periods when as many as one in three veterans in the younger age group was without work. That rate was more than double compared to civilians of the same age.

Last month, the jobless rate for veterans in that age group was 10.4%, nearly identical to the 10.1% unemployment figure for civilians in the same bracket.

The struggle to find work became part of the national narrative for this generation of veterans, along with concerns about high suicide rates, post- traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

The high jobless rate led to new legislation in 2011 requiring all troops to go through military- tocivilian transition programs. New government and private sector initiatives also aimed to hire more veterans.

“The DOD ( Department of Defense) has gotten a lot smarter about preparing servicemembers for transition,” said Terry Gerton, deputy assistant secretary for policy for veterans employment and training at the Labor Department.

The annual cost of unemployment compensation for the military branches has also declined sharply in recent years, from its peak of $ 944 million paid out to unemployed former servicemembers in 2011, according to the Labor Department. That figure dropped to $ 565 million last year, the lowest since 2008.

Gerton, a West Point graduate and former Army officer, said Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are now “better prepared to search for jobs, to write a resume, to participate in interviews.”