For several years the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been producing data on the employment / unemployment status of America’s veterans when they release the monthly unemployment data. On July 6 they released the data from June 2012. The data for veterans presents a mix of good and not-so-good news but the trend is somewhat encouraging.
The veterans employment/unemployment data is presented in many formats but the most useful are the year over year table and the table where the data is broken down by the age of the veteran. Both tables also break down by the sex of the veteran. The year over year table also categorizes, very roughly, veterans by the conflict in which they served.
There are 21,193,000 veterans, according to the BLS. That’s a drop of 435,000 from June 2011. The drop is found in the category that the BLS calls “World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam-era veterans”. That group makes up 47 percent of all veterans. Only about 3 million of these older vets are in the labor force and their unemployment rate for June was 7.1 percent. That’s a small drop from June of last year’s rate of 7.8 percent.
About 2.3 million Gulf War I vets are in the labor force. Their unemployment rate is 6.4 percent for June, down from 7.1 percent in June 2011. 163,000 vets from this era are unemployed.
The largest group of vets in the labor force are those who did not serve in a major conflict. That would include Cold War era vets and post-Vietnam vets. Their unemployment rate shows considerable improvement, dropping from 8.5 percent in June 2011 to 7.1 percent in June 2012.
A great deal of attention has been focused on the Gulf War II vets, those who served from September 2001 to date. They make up 12 percent of the veteran population, at just over 2.6 million people. The unemployment rate for Gulf War II veterans in June 2012 was a lousy 9.5 percent. It was, however, much better than the June 2011 rate for these vets of 13.3 percent.
Which Gulf War II vets have the highest unemployment? Men between the ages of 18 and 24 have a June 2012 unemployment rate of 25.9 percent. Of the 182 thousand male Gulf War II vets in the labor force, 47 thousand are unemployed. The corresponding unemployment rate for non-veterans in this age group is 17.4 percent.
Generalizing, women vets appear to have higher unemployment rates. The numbers of unemployed are much smaller, reflecting the smaller number of female veterans. They make up 8.6 percent of the veteran population in the United States. Female vets from either Gulf War have an unemployment rate just over ten percent. Those from other conflicts have much lower rates.
For Gulf War II vets, the key number is those vets not in the labor force. 536,000 of these vets are neither working or looking for work. This suggest that a great many vets from this era are in college or some other form of training which bodes well for their future employment prospects.
Charles Simmins brings thirty years of accounting and management experience to his coverage of the news. An upstate New Yorker, he is a free lance journalist, former volunteer firefighter and EMT, and is owned by a wife and four cats.
