Every year, on the 11th of November, Veterans Day is celebrated in the US to honour the veterans who have served the nation. That day is a federal holiday dedicated to honouring the veterans.
Serving those who have served us has been the idea behind the original GI Bill and the latter post GI Bill 9/11. The particular term GI Bill is referred to different sort of benefits offered to the members of National Guard Armed Forces, Selected Reserve and Active Duty as well as their family members. These benefits are offered by the department of Veterans Affairs. The post GI Bill 9/11 facilitated the enrolment of many veterans and military personnel in various institutions for higher education at an amazingly high rate. Though this small step to help them in their transition from battlefield to college was somewhat gratifying but the real aim is to see them settled in their new career and lives. The Joint Task Force on Veterans' Affairs was established in 2009 by the Council on Social Work Education. This called upon the social work educators to train themselves so as to equip the veterans, military persona and their family to find placements and establish in the civilian field by developing their curricula and preparing research agenda. Let us see whether we have been successful in this matter or not?
Substantial cut especially in the military and armed forces in the recent years is due to two main factors: 1) cooling off of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and 2) extensive pressure on the government to cut down expenditure in the defence especially military expenditure. US layoff in the military has been massive since 2012. Since then there have been several public as well as private programmes to enable their transition into the civilian environment for education and job. Several companies came forward announcing their intention to serve those who have served us. The government also released several promotional videos calling upon the business community to recruit thousands of jobless veterans, stating that veterans do possess leadership, teamwork and problem solving skills which most companies would seek in an employee.
Despite this the unemployment rate remained high and many experts feared that the recession might strike again. The fact that simultaneous with the military cuts in the civilian field, some major technological giant companies also announced layoffs did not help the matter in the least. Recently the government announced that veterans would receive priority in job counselling and placement in the 2600 nationwide centres of the Department of Labour. Many programmes are initiated by the government and private sectors in their intention to serve those who served us.
Statistics reveal that unemployment rate for men, is less than that in women among the veterans. Also as per the latest record, the unemployment rate among those with disability is same as those without.
As of now the trends show an overall improvement in the job prospects. Hopefully this will continue till the full recovery of the job market to give place to those brave Americans who served the nation selflessly.