This year, the PEW Research Center conducted a national survey of veterans and found that 44% of post 9/11 soldiers have faced difficulty in readjusting to civilian life. As most of our troops make their way home from Iraq, we must show our support and understanding as they struggle to assimilate back to civilian life. Part of that struggle is finding a job in what often seems to be an unrelenting job market. Many veterans enlisted in service following their high school graduation and do not have college degrees when they return home. In March of 2011, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched its Hiring our Heroes program, a year-long nationwide effort to help veterans and their spouses find meaningful employment. This coming January 13th, the Chamber will host the Hiring Our Heroes Military Spouse Career Forum and Hiring Fair in Washington, DC to continue their support for America's veterans. An article from The Economist elaborates on the job opportunity struggle veterans will face coming home:

Not all recent veterans are so lucky. Around 800,000 veterans are jobless, 1.4m live below the poverty line, and one in every three homeless adult men in America is a veteran. Though the overall unemployment rate among America’s 21m veterans in November (7.4%) was lower than the national rate (8.6%), for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan it was 11.1%. And for veterans between the ages of 18 and 24, it was a staggering 37.9%, up from 30.4% just a month earlier.

If demography is indeed destiny, perhaps this figure should not be surprising. More soldiers are male than female, and the male jobless rate exceeds women’s. Since so many soldiers lack a college degree, the fact that the recession has been particularly hard on the less educated hits veterans disproportionately. Large numbers of young veterans work—or worked—in stricken industries such as manufacturing and construction. Whatever the cause, this bleak trend is occurring as the last American troops leave Iraq at the end of this year, and as more than 1m new veterans are expected to join the civilian labour force over the next four years.

Continue reading the article here.