Yesterday President Barack Obama announced several new initiatives to help Veterans translate their military skills for the civilian workforce and provide Veterans with new tools to aid their search for jobs.
- The new Veterans Job Bank connects unemployed Veterans to job openings with companies that want to hire them. The Obama Administration partnered with leading job search companies to create a new, easy to use online service that enables employers to “tag” job postings for Veterans. It launched with more than 500,000 job listings, a number that will continue growing as more companies tag the job postings on their own websites and add them to the Veterans Job Bank.
- My Next Move for Veterans is an easy-to-use online tool created by the Department of Labor that allows Veterans to enter information about their experience and skills in the field, and match it with civilian careers that put that experience to use. The site also includes information about salaries, apprenticeships, and other related education and training programs.
- The Veteran Gold Card provides post-9/11 Veterans with extra support as they transition out of the military. Once a Veteran has downloaded the Veteran Gold Card, he or she can access six months of personalized case management, assessments and counseling at the roughly 3,000 One-Stop Career Centers located across the country.
Leading veterans’ organizations also joined President Obama at the White House to announce their support for the Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior Tax Credits, two provisions in the American Jobs Act Congress is scheduled to consider that will help create jobs and strengthen the economy. The Returning Heroes Tax Credit provides firms that hire unemployed Veterans with a maximum credit of $5,600 per Veteran, while the Wounded Warriors Tax Credit offers firms that hire Veterans with service-connected disabilities with a maximum credit of $9,600 per Veteran.