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Military vets struggle to find work

They were hard hit by the recession because so many had landed private sector work.

USAF Master Sgt. James Wheeler of Riverside talks with recruiter Gina Moscorelli of Mission Essential Personnel Tuesday morning at the Military.com and NCOA Career Expo in the Hope Hotel at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. About 30 companies, ranging from large defense contractors to local businesses, were represented. Staff photo by Jan Underwood

Jan Underwood/Staff Photographer USAF Master Sgt. James Wheeler of Riverside talks with recruiter Gina Moscorelli of Mission Essential Personnel Tuesday morning at the Military.com and NCOA Career Expo in the Hope Hotel at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. About 30 companies, ranging from large defense contractors to local businesses, were represented. Staff photo by Jan Underwood

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By Kelli Wynn, Staff Writer Updated 7:44 AM Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The nation’s military veterans who served after 9/11 are having a harder time finding or holding onto civilian jobs than their colleagues from other eras, in part because many of them landed in the recession-battered private sector.

More than two-thirds of all post 9/11 veterans found work in the private sector, which left them vulnerable to massive job losses tied to the Great Recession, according to The U.S. Congres Joint Economic Committee chaired by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. Addressing the high jobless rate among post 9/11 veterans “will require ongoing investment in programs that help veterans transition to post-military life and the civilian workforce,” the report said.

One such program, a career expo at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, attracted an estimated 500 veterans and active-duty personnel and 33 companies Tuesday. The expo, held by the Non-Commissioned Officers Association and Military.com, was designed to help recent and soon-to-be veterans navigate the path to work in the civilian world.

“Even though we don’t advocate for them getting out of the military, at some point they will transition out of the military. We try to be there to assist them and put them face-to-face with a cilivian recruiter,” said Jeri Glowacki, director of operations for the association.

The expo’s organizers estimated there are more than 86,000 working-age veterans in the Dayton area.

Among all veterans, those who served on active duty since September 2001 had the highest unemployment rate last year — 10.9 percent. Veterans from other eras had jobless rates ranging from 8.5 percent to 6.4 percent, according to the congressional report.

Prior to the recession, post 9/11 veterans were more likely than non-veterans to be working in the mining, construction, manufacturing, transportation, utility, information, and professional and business services industries — all of which experienced significant drops in employment in 2008 and 2009. These veterans also were less likely to be employed in education and health services, the only major sectors that added jobs during the recession, the report said.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Demoine Kinney attended Tuesday’s expo. The South Carolina native said he wants to use his IT background as a stepping stone to get to a new job after he leaves the military in six months.

Tracey Crain of Xenia said up until recently, she would have described herself as someone who did not have a problem with finding a job. Now the former traffic management coordinator and documentation specialist for the U.S. military found herself at Tuesday’s career expo looking for the right job after being laid off in March.

“I have applied for a lot of positions, but I think employers are being very, very sure that when they place a person, they are exactly the right person,” Crain said. “It’s discouraging, but I know that if I also get picked by a local employer, it’s going to be because they have done their background (checks). I want an employer who values me like I value them.”

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