More than 100 employers, including financial giants Bank of America, Citi, and Goldman Sachs, connected with more than 1,500 job-seeking military veterans and their spouses on June 23 for a U.S. Chamber-sponsored Hiring Our Heroes job fair at Pier 86 in New York City.

The U.S. Chamber joined the Veterans on Wall Street (VOWS) consortium of financial institutions to hold the jobs fair onboard the Intrepid Sea Air & Space Museum. “From some of the nation’s largest banks to the New York Police and Fire Departments, we had companies here today committed to hiring veterans,” said Lt. Col. Kevin Schmiegel (retired), a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and the current vice president of Veterans Programs at the U.S. Chamber. “As we’ve seen in our other fairs across the country, we expect that many of these men and women will leave here with jobs.”

The estimated jobless rate among male veterans ages 18-24 was more than 30% in May, compared with 18% among male civilians of the same age group, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Chamber’s Hiring Our Heroes initiative, a nationwide public-private partnership, will host 100 hiring fairs across the country this year. The program launched in March with a successful jobs fair in Chicago. The Chamber is leveraging its extensive network of 1,700 state and local chambers and partnering with the Department of Labor Veterans Employment and Training Service (DOL VETS) and the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) to connect talented veterans and military spouses with jobs in the private sector.

For more information, visit: http://www.uschamber.com/veterans.