On Monday, President Obama unveiled several initiatives aimed at assisting returning veterans with jobs, including the Veterans Job Bank, an online tool of private /public partnerships that allows Veterans to search for available jobs by their skills or their zip code.
Leading veterans’ organizations joined Mr. Obama and announced their support for the Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior Tax Credits, two provisions in the American Jobs Act Congress is scheduled to consider this week. President Obama also announced three executive actions that will help veterans find jobs.
The Returning Heroes Tax Credit provides firms that hire unemployed veterans with a maximum credit of $5,600 per veteran. The Wounded Warriors Tax Credit offers firms that hire veterans with service-connected disabilities with a maximum credit of $9,600 per veteran.
“No veteran should have to fight for a job at home after they fight for our nation overseas,” said President Obama. “Congress should pass the Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior tax credits, but we can’t wait for Congress to act. That’s why today, I am directing my Administration to move forward with three initiatives that will help make it easier for veterans to find jobs when they return home.”
The specific initiatives are:
Veteran Gold Card: Effective today, Post-9/11 veterans will be able to to download the Veteran Gold Card, which entitles them to enhanced services including six months of personalized case management, assessments and counseling, at the roughly 3,000 One-Stop Career Centers located across the country. This could help serve the more than 200,000 unemployed Post-9/11 veterans. The President directed the Department of Labor to launch this initiative in his August 5, 2011 speech at the Navy Yard.
My Next Move for Veterans: The Department of Labor will launch My Next Move for Veterans, a new online resource that allows veterans to enter their military occupation code and discover civilian occupations for which they are well qualified. The site will also include information about salaries, apprenticeships, and other related education and training programs.
Creating a Veterans Job Bank: Starting Monday, the Administration will launch the Veterans Job Bank, at National Resource Directory, an easy to use tool to help veterans find job postings from companies looking to hire them. It already searches over 500,000 job postings and is growing. In a few easy steps, companies can make sure the job postings on their own websites are part of this Veterans Job Bank.
While nationwide, unemployment remains at a stubbonly high 9 percent, the jobless rate among veterans is even higher at 12.1 percent.
For more information go to: www.nationalresourcedirectory.gov
