COLORADO SPRINGS — Thirty soldiers sat Monday morning in a cinder-block barracks-turned-classroom at Fort Carson Army base learning resume writing and interviewing skills.
Classes to prepare soldiers home from Iraq or Afghanistan to re-enter civilian life cover much of the same material they always have, with at least one exception, according to Denis Leveille, who runs one of the programs on base.
“A year ago, I’d tell people it’s a great time to get out. There are plenty of jobs, and they want to hire ex-military,” Leveille said. “Now, I don’t tell them the same thing.”
Facing an ever-shrinking job market, newly discharged vets suffer higher unemployment rates than civilian peers by some estimates and are more frequently turning to support organizations for short-term financial help than in the past.
The issue has drawn the attention of state and national leaders and spawned a number of programs — headlined by this week’s advent of the widely expanded GI Bill — aimed at opening new avenues to returning servicemen and women.
“The original GI Bill paved the way to a better life for millions of veterans and their families while building the foundation of the American middle class,” President Barack Obama said Monday. “Today, the Post- 9/11 GI Bill is affording a new generation of heroes a 21st-century version of that same opportunity.”
Paying up to four years’ full college tuition plus books and other expenses for recent veterans is sure to help many, but it won’t provide immediate relief for the former military members with monthly mortgage or car payments, said Curtis Johnson.
“From what I’ve seen, the majority of vets need to have a livelihood. They have families,” said Johnson, coordinator for the state’s program that retrains wounded veterans. “Ninety percent of everyone coming back can’t just go to school.”
The Post 9/11 GI bill, which at least one attendee at Monday’s Fort Carson class has already used, is accompanied by a new focus on re-employing wounded veterans in federal-government jobs and a new program expediting small-business loans for former military members. At the state level, workforce-development centers across Colorado house veteran-outreach coordinators.
While numbers are hard to track, Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America estimates that unemployment among veterans runs up to 2 percentage points higher than the national average. The national unemployment rate is 9.5 percent.
In Colorado, recent veterans have been hit by the same types of layoffs and downsizing as their civilian co-workers. But the multiple deployments those in the National Guard face give pause to some smaller businesses looking for new employees, said Sharon Lindell, state Labor Department coordinator for a program training veterans in green jobs.
“That doesn’t mean they’re unwilling to hire them, but it’s tougher for them,” Lindell said.
Guard members are guaranteed their jobs, pay and benefits upon their return by federal law. But the number of official complaints against employers not following those rules in the first six months of 2009 — 20 in Colorado — is on pace to outstrip the 25 to 26 complaints received in any of the previous three years, according to data from the U.S. Labor Department.
Staff Sgt. Jeremy Thompson, 35, sat in fatigues in the packed Fort Carson classroom and nodded somberly at the mention of the faltering economy.
Instead of trusting a finicky job market, Thompson said he plans to start a business — a paintball arena — near the base once he receives medical clearance for discharge.
It’s a way of controlling his own fate, he said. And it’s an option that’s growing in popularity, according to outreach workers.
“It’s stressful. And it’s something my wife and I thought a lot about,” said Thompson, a father of four. “There’s a big unknown out there.”
