Getting Veterans Back to Work

On November 21, 2011, President Obama signed into law two new tax credits intended to encourage businesses to hire veterans and veterans with service-connected disabilities. The tax credits accompany three additional resources established earlier by the White House intended to help put unemployed veterans back to work.

In October 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 11.5% of all U.S. veterans who served at any time since September 11, 2001 were unemployed, compared to 9.4% for non-veterans. In addition, about 25% of the post-9/11 veterans reported having a service-connected disability, compared with about 13% of all veterans.

Also See: Veterans' Preference in U.S. Government Job Hiring

"While our economy has added more than 350,000 private sector jobs just over the past three months, more than 850,000 veterans remain unemployed," stated President Obama on Nov. 7, 2011. "That's not right. It doesn't make sense -- not for our veterans, not for our families, not for America -- and we're determined to change that."

The Business Tax Credits

The Returning Heroes Tax Credit offers a tax credit of up to $5,600 per veteran to businesses that hire previously unemployed veterans, and the Wounded Warriors Tax Credit offers a tax credit of up $9,600 per veteran to businesses that hire veterans with service-connected disabilities.

The Returning Heroes Tax Credit: Provides a tax credit of 40% of the first $6,000 of wages (up to $2,400) for employers who hire veterans who have been unemployed at least 4 weeks, and a tax credit of 40% of the first $14,000 of wages (up to $5,600) for employers who hire veterans who have been unemployed longer than 6 months.

The Wounded Warrior Tax Credit: Extends the Work Opportunity Tax Credit of up to $4,800 for businesses that hire veterans with service-connected disabilities and offers a new tax credit of 40% of the first $24,000 of wages (up to $9,600) for firms that hire veterans with service-connected disabilities who have been unemployed longer than 6 months.

Other Veterans Employment Resources

To supplement the Returning Heroes and Wounded Warriors tax credits, the U.S. Department of Labor has create three new resources to help post-9/11 veterans become and remain employed.

The Veterans Gold Card: The downloadable Veterans Gold Card entitles post-9/11 veterans to enhanced employment services from the Department of Labor including up to six months of personalized job skills assessment, job search and training counseling, job referral and case management at the nearly 3,000 One-Stop Career Centers located across the nation. A joint effort of the Department of Labor and the Veterans' Administration, the Veterans Gold Card program could serve more than 200,000 unemployed post-9/11 veterans.

My Next Move for Veterans: The Department of Labor's My Next Move for Veterans website is an offshoot of its popular My Next Move job opportunity search engine for the general public launched in early 2011. By entering their prior military experience (branch of service and military occupation code or title) into the My Next Move for Veterans database, veterans can find information on civilian careers and training opportunities related to their military experience and training. This targeted information can help veterans write resumes that highlight related civilian skills. In addition, My Next Move for Veterans is coordinated with the VA's new Transition Assistance Program (TAP) and its Strong Interest Inventory. Veterans who have not received a TAP interest assessment can get one by accessing and taking the interest assessment online at My Next Move for Veterans.

Veterans Job Bank: Similar to the many online job banks for civilian jobseekers, the Veterans Job Bank, which can currently be found on the National Resource Directory website, helps veterans find job postings from companies specifically looking to hire them. As of December 2011, the Veterans Job Bank held over one million job postings. A particularly convenient feature allows companies to easily post jobs from their own websites without having to re-create them for the Veterans Job Bank.

Considering the financial advantages offered to businesses by the Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior tax credits for hiring veterans, the number of job openings in the Veterans Job Bank should grow quickly, helping the private sector meet or exceed President Obama's challenge to hire 100,000 unemployed veterans or military spouses by the end of 2013.

Veterans Hiring Veterans

While many U.S. veterans are looking for jobs, many veterans are creating them by starting their own businesses. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that in 2007, veterans owned more than 2.4 million businesses, or about 9% of all businesses in the United States. As for jobs, the veteran-owned businesses employed 5.8 million people with annual payrolls totaling more than $210.0 billion.