(U.S. Army/Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall, Jr.) In the past couple of years, American businesses have sought to do their part to solve the veteran unemployment crisis. And, largely, their response worked.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the veteran unemployment rate fell to 3.1%, the lowest since 2000, according to the Department of Labor .
While most businesses fulfilled their promises to hire vets (tips of the hat to Hilton Hotels and Starbucks Coffee , just to name a couple), some sadly offered more lip service than jobs. So the Labor Department devised a way to ensure businesses that actually hire veterans get the recognition they deserved.
To encourage hiring and retaining veterans, the U.S. government began honoring businesses with the HIRE Vets Medallion Award, given at different levels, as an incentive to keep employers looking for veterans to fill roles. (Department of Labor) There are substantial benefits, backed up by years of research, to hiring vets.
Aside from giving back to the military-veteran community, the Labor Department wants businesses to know they only stand to benefit from veteran hires. American military veterans are renowned for their soft skills, such as customer service, teamwork and leadership abilities. They are also easily trainable in multiple disciplines, just as their military service likely required.
What businesses get in return is more than just a hard worker who is loyal to the company. Once a veteran finds their niche inside a company, they are more likely to be promoted and become leaders, and are much easier to manage than their civilian counterparts, research has found.
But while hiring vets may seem like a slam dunk, veteran unemployment hovered around 3.4% higher than non-veteran counterparts for years following the Great Recession. In some places, veteran unemployment reached as high as 29%.
It was a full-blown crisis, and numerous government programs were created across administrations to handle it.
The latest is the Honoring Investments in Recruiting and Employing American Military Veterans Act of 2017 (or HIRE Vets Act), which recognizes employers who recruit, employ or retrain these high-functioning individuals through the Department of Labor. It allows employers to apply for the Medallion […]
How the Department of Labor Rewards Companies for Hiring Veterans
