U.S. | 2011 Employment Situation of Veterans : Unemployment Rate drops to 8.3 % (from 8.7 % in 2010)

The unemployment rate for veterans who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces at any time since September 2001–a group referred to as Gulf War-era II veterans–was 12.1 percent in 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The jobless rate for all veterans was 8.3 percent. Twenty-six percent of Gulf War-era II veterans reported having a service-connected disability in August 2011, compared with about 14 percent of all veterans.

This information was obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of about 60,000 households that provides information on employment and unemployment in the United States. Data about veterans are collected monthly in the CPS; those monthly data are the source of the 2011 annual averages presented in this release. In August 2011, a supplement to the CPS collected additional information about veterans on topics such as service-connected disability. Information from the supplement is also presented in this release. The supplement was co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service. For more information, see the Technical Note, which provides definitions of terms used in this release.

Highlights from the 2011 data:

– The unemployment rate of veterans in 2011 (8.3 percent) was not statistically different from the rate in 2010 (8.7 percent). The rate for Gulf War-era II veterans also was little different from a year earlier. (See table A.)

– Young male veterans (those ages 18 to 24) who served during Gulf War era II had an unemployment rate of 29.1 percent in 2011, higher than that of young male nonveterans (17.6 percent).

– Among all veterans, those with a service-connected disability had an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent in August 2011, about the same as the rate for veterans with no disability (7.9 percent).

– One in three employed veterans with a service-connected disability worked in the public sector in August 2011, compared with about 1 in 5 veterans with no disability.

– Gulf War-era II veterans who were current or past members of the Reserve or National Guard had an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent in August 2011, little different than the rate for those veterans who had not been members (11.0 percent).

– Gulf War-era II veterans who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both had an unemployment rate of 11.6 percent in August 2011.

Source:

Read more @ Employment Situation of Veterans Summary.