Crystal Foster joined the Army at 17 thinking she would learn what she needed to land a good job when she got out.
But when she was discharged in 2003, Foster found that her secretarial training from the Army wasn’t enough to be all that she could be.
After more than two years of looking for work, Foster realized she needed more schooling – this time in how to market herself. “I came home from interviews crying half the time,” said Foster, now 23.
Many young veterans find themselves struggling to find good jobs in an otherwise robust national economy that offers better prospects to nonveterans in the same age group.
The national unemployment rate is a rock-bottom 4.7 percent. Yet the jobless rate for veterans age 20-24 grew from 11 percent in 2003 to almost 16 percent last year. Nonveterans in the same age range have an unemployment rate of about 9 percent.
Nationally, the unemployment rate for all veterans is slightly below that for the population in general.
The problem is especially severe for younger veterans without civilian jobs skills. Vets with marketable skills generally have no more difficulty getting jobs than civilians.
Home Depot, Qwest and other companies are actively enlisting veterans.
Qwest, for instance, actively recruits at least two people a month who are leaving the military with networking or other skills. The company also hires vets who apply for jobs without being recruited.
Home Depot aggressively pursues, hires and trains veterans.
Employment experts point to a lack of civilian job experience or college degree among the young vets and other reasons for the unemployment spike.
Many of those leaving active duty are seeking help from U.S. Department of Labor programs that teach them job-marketing skills.
“I don’t think there is one answer to this,” said Charles “Chick” Ciccolella, assistant secretary of labor for Veterans’ Employment and Training Service. “But we are very concerned about it.
Foster, a mother of two young children, went to the federally funded Pikes Peak Workforce Center, where she learned to improve her résumé, make a good impression at a job interview and polish other skills.
In July, she got a job at the Colorado Springs Adelphia Cable call center as a customer-service representative, for a starting wage of $10.10 an hour.
“The only reason that I went in (the Army) was because I needed more skills,” she said. “I thought I would be snapped up when I got out. I am just happy that I got a job.”
Many of those now returning to civilian life went into the military directly from high school, said Bill Dozier, assistant director of employment and homeless programs for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
“You have a lot of kids joining the military who have never worked, maybe they pumped gas or something – but who wants to come back and pump gas? They are looking for better employment, but they don’t have the tools,” Dozier said.
Some don’t know how to market transferable skills such as leadership, said Patricia Frank, local veterans employment representative for the Colorado Department of Labor at the Pikes Peak Workforce Center.
“We tell them you have to think about your transferable skills. If you were a sergeant, those skills may not be transferable. If you were a sergeant and led four or five people, you have supervisory skills,” Frank said.
Reservists who joined right out of school and have no civilian job to return to may be turned down by prospective employers who fear they will be called up in the future, Dozier said.
Few people in management ranks have any familiarity with the military, and some don’t understand the value of skills learned there, said Ted Daywalt, president of the online job site VetJobs.com.
“With 34 years of an all-volunteer force, there are two generations of (employers) that have no experience of what is going on in the military,” he said.
Some of those now being discharged may not have learned enough in the military to appeal to employers.
“Someone who was pure infantry, they might need some additional job training,” said Frank.
John Thompson, 24, joined the army after high school and learned to inspect nuclear, chemical and biological protective clothing and gas masks. He thought the job would be the path to a better life that a recruiter had promised before he enlisted.
But when he was discharged in 2003 and applied for work, he was told he needed more experience working with hazardous agents than the three-plus years he had.
“It took me two or three months just to find a job,” he said, “and then it was as a cashier at a liquor store.”
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-820-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
