|
click above for details
click for details
VA Watchdog Stuff...
cups, hats, shirts...
click on item to order
and support the site.
Be sure to get all four
VA Watchdog dot Org
RSS feeds --
Daily VA
News Flashes
House CVA
Veterans' News
Senate CVA
Veterans' News
VA Press
Releases
Download your
free copy of the
2008 VA benefits
handbook here...
|
Printer-Friendly Version
SIGN OF THE TIMES: VETERANS FACING A NEW
FIGHT -
FOR JOBS -- "I apply everywhere, even KFC.
It's been tougher than I thought."
All "Sign of the Times" articles are here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/signofthetimes.htm
Story here...
http://www3.signonsa
ndiego.com/stories/2009/mar/15/1m15ste
tz22254-veterans-are-facing-new-fight-8211-/
Story below:
Your comments accepted at bottom of
page.
Share story/email link.
-------------------------
Veterans are facing a new
fight – for jobs
Lucas Hernandez used to have a steady job that offered all kinds of perks:
a clothing allowance, worldwide travel.
Not every stop was all that, though. Twice Hernandez went to Iraq and once
to Afghanistan.
He left the Army in February 2008 because his hitch was up. He didn't
re-up because of family problems. It turned out to be a bad time to turn
in his uniform.
Hernandez can't find work.
“I apply everywhere, even KFC,” he told me at a recent job fair for active
military and veterans at the Scottish Rite Center in Mission Valley.
“It's been tougher than I thought.”
The job fair was crowded with people like Hernandez, 28, a Chula Vista
resident. They were mostly veterans looking to upgrade their jobs or find
work.
They milled about, talking to all kinds of employers, from Sears to
Lockheed Martin to the U.S. Border Patrol. They waited in long lines. Some
held briefcases filled with their résumés. Many had short hair and iron
expressions – no doubt remnants of military duty.
Hernandez spent eight years in the Army, most of them as a mechanic. He
had a job for a short time as a technician with a refrigeration company,
making $25 an hour, but he was laid off late last year.
So now he is part of a growing new army. San Diego County's jobless rate
is 8.6 percent – the worst in more than two decades. The state's
unemployment rate has topped 10 percent.
In general, veterans have a lower unemployment rate than civilians, said
Deanne Amaden, a Department of Labor spokeswoman. “They're often in
demand.”
But younger people – both veterans and non-veterans – are struggling. Last
year, the national unemployment rate was more than 13 percent for veterans
in the 20-to-24 age bracket, 11 percent for their civilian counterparts.
It seems too many people are chasing too few jobs. Most of us know someone
who is out of work. I do.
Joblessness is a painful experience for anyone, but it seems particularly
cruel for veterans.
These are men and women who have given years of their lives to help make
this nation safe, secure and vibrant in a very unsettling time. Two wars
are being fought, after all.
But they're finding when they come home that the nation is not so
economically vibrant.
David Bryant got of the Air Force in December after three years of
service. Bryant was a crew chief for B-52 bombers, helping make sure they
were running right.
The only job he has found since then was handing out coupons at a taco
shop in Mission Valley. Even that gig is up.
Bryant, 23, wants to make it to August, when the new GI Bill takes effect,
so he can go to college. He is living with his mom in Spring Valley.
“I'm not giving up,” he said of his job search.
A company called Military-Stars ran this job fair, which was open to all
veterans, even those who left the service years ago. A quarter-million
people leave the military annually, said Robert Nothdurft of
Military-Stars. The Sarasota, Fla., company tries to place them with
government and private-sector employers that pay to make the connection.
The federal government also has a program, called Veterans' Employment and
Training Service, which tries to help veterans land jobs.
click for more information -- a disabled veteran
owned business
Some veterans, particularly infantryman, don't necessarily have skills
that make sense in the civilian world. Qualcomm doesn't need, say,
parachutists. So these programs, some of which offer job training, are
vital.
All of that is fine and good when the economy is humming. When the economy
isn't, employment opportunities shrink and it's a different story – a
story I heard often at the job fair.
“I've turned my résumé in to 40 places and I've gotten one call back,”
said Troy Bourgeois, 22, who spent four years in the Navy.
Bourgeois has been out since December and has yet to find work.
“It's a job, not having a job.”
He worked radar with the Navy. Now he has college on his radar. But not
until August.
These hard-luck stories keep coming. A Phoenix woman recently sent e-mails
to this newspaper hoping we could help her brother, an Iraq veteran.
“He returned home in August of 2008 to a very bad economy, which is ironic
considering he spent the last couple years of his life helping to
 build
the economy in Iraq,” Katy Giglio wrote.
Marc Giglio, 29, told me he and his fiancée moved to San Diego in
December. He thought there would be opportunity here.
“It's just a shame I had to come home to a poor and unstable economy,” he
said.
Giglio is a former infantryman who served three years with the Army. He
was in Iraq for 15 months, where he saw “very violent” combat. He had quit
his job with the public works department for Calumet City, Ill., to join.
He wanted to serve his country.
“It's killing me,” he said of his failing job hunt.
This, from someone just back from a war zone. Now he's stuck in a
different kind of a war zone, one that's been pretty unforgiving, too.
Michael Stetz: (619) 293-1720
-------------------------
posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
-------------------------
-------------------------
Please post your comments below on Google
Friend Connect. You must sign in. For larger view and work
area, click blue "expand" button in upper right corner of comment box.
-------------------------
Don't forget to read all of today's VA
News Flashes (click here)
Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage
(go back to VA Watchdog dot Org Home
Page) |
Military
Medical Malpractice
Legal
Network
VA Watchdog Stuff...
cups, hats, shirts...
click on item to order
and support the site.
|
