thedrifter
07-29-06, 07:32 AM
Saturday July 29, 2006
Young Tier veterans find job options 'disheartening'
Some have trouble explaining skills to employers, experts say
By Rahkia Nance and George Basler
Press & Sun-Bulletin
After his honorable discharge from the Army in February 2005, Michael Blake spent that summer looking for a job in Broome County. The Endicott man applied for retail jobs and "every store in the Town Square Mall" but came up empty-handed. He passed on a part-time job at a loading dock at Target.
"I felt like I had done a lot for my country and I couldn't even get a stinking job at a movie theater or a Dunkin' Donuts," said Blake, 23, who drove supply trucks in Iraq. "It was really disheartening." Blake applied for unemployment benefits and found that he was making more money than he would have at some of the jobs he applied for.
He said many of his friends in the military have experienced similar difficulties. Some, who had combat duties, found themselves pigeonholed into security jobs. Others, he claims, were unable to keep and hold jobs because of post-traumatic stress disorder.
"It's definitely a serious problem for GIs who are coming back right now," said Blake, who is working this summer with a traveling circus. This fall he will resume his studies at SUNY Cortland to become an elementary school teacher. "People say they are supporting the troops, but I feel that it doesn't translate into anything real. It's just a slogan. A lot of the time the country is loving its troops and forgetting its veterans."
Last year across the nation, about one in six veterans between ages 20 and 24 was jobless, nearly double the rate for non-veterans their age. The outlook was brighter in the second quarter of the year, when young vets had an 11.2 percent jobless rate, but that was still higher than the 8 percent for non-vets their age and more than twice the overall employment rate.
Labor and veterans officials are surveying young vets to find out why. But experts have some theories:
* Some veterans are entering the work force for the first time and aren't adept at explaining their military skills to employers.
* Some who saw combat in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which makes it difficult for them to work and makes employers leery of hiring them.
* Permanent jobs that offer middle-class wages and benefits are more scarce these days in some regions.
Nicholas Legos, 24, of Binghamton, said it was "pretty hard" finding a job after he returned from tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, where he worked in an engineering and demolition unit with the Marines. Without question, the region's overall soft economy was a factor in his difficult job search, Legos said. But he also lacked marketable skills from the military, he said.
"Basically for four years all I did was blow up things, and that's not necessarily what employers want to hear," said Legos, who served in the Marines from July 2000 to July 2004. "I didn't learn anything I could get a job in."
He has worked as a groundskeeper/maintenance man at Ely Park Golf Course for the past 18 months, but before that was on unemployment for six months. It was tough to see friends he knew from Binghamton High School, where he graduated in 2000, with jobs when he was unemployed, he said. The key was to not be discouraged and keep trying, he said. Now, Legos is getting ready to take another job with a private floor-sanding company. He also is a student at Broome Community College, studying fire science. He wants to be a firefighter.
Not all veterans have trouble landing a job. Steven Gregorski, 26, of Binghamton, got a job in April, about three weeks after his discharge from the Marines. Planning can help military workers transition into the civilian world, said Gregorski, who was in the Marines for eight years as an infantryman.
"You've got to do a lot of preparation and goal setting before you get out," said Gregorski, who would not disclose where he works. The planning should begin a year or two before discharge, he said. Gregorski said he sat down and thought about what he was interested in doing and researched jobs in those fields. "I made a long list of careers," he said.
But the geographic region a veteran returns to can play a large role in their ability to find a job, said Maj. John Baker of Marines For Life, which helps Marines transition into life after active duty.
"When a person goes into active duty, they basically lose their personal network," said Baker, who works with Marines in western New York. "Their contacts will change and all the relationships are different. All the connections are different."
Finding a job can prove frustrating for some as they struggle to translate their military experience into qualifications for civilian jobs, Baker said. "A lot of Marines come back and they believe they've proven themselves and are looking for an opportunity to rejoin the community they've left."
Sometimes employers become very specific with the criteria they're looking for in an employee, which can leave Marines out of the pool of candidates.
"They're looking for this person specifically trained in a certain kind of hardware within a certain industry," Baker said, giving an example of targeted recruiting. "Once you bring all those things together, that eliminates a lot of veterans. They don't have those specifics of software or industry. They're more generalists."
Gannett News Service reporter Katherine Hutt Scott contributed to this report.
Ellie
Young Tier veterans find job options 'disheartening'
Some have trouble explaining skills to employers, experts say
By Rahkia Nance and George Basler
Press & Sun-Bulletin
After his honorable discharge from the Army in February 2005, Michael Blake spent that summer looking for a job in Broome County. The Endicott man applied for retail jobs and "every store in the Town Square Mall" but came up empty-handed. He passed on a part-time job at a loading dock at Target.
"I felt like I had done a lot for my country and I couldn't even get a stinking job at a movie theater or a Dunkin' Donuts," said Blake, 23, who drove supply trucks in Iraq. "It was really disheartening." Blake applied for unemployment benefits and found that he was making more money than he would have at some of the jobs he applied for.
He said many of his friends in the military have experienced similar difficulties. Some, who had combat duties, found themselves pigeonholed into security jobs. Others, he claims, were unable to keep and hold jobs because of post-traumatic stress disorder.
"It's definitely a serious problem for GIs who are coming back right now," said Blake, who is working this summer with a traveling circus. This fall he will resume his studies at SUNY Cortland to become an elementary school teacher. "People say they are supporting the troops, but I feel that it doesn't translate into anything real. It's just a slogan. A lot of the time the country is loving its troops and forgetting its veterans."
Last year across the nation, about one in six veterans between ages 20 and 24 was jobless, nearly double the rate for non-veterans their age. The outlook was brighter in the second quarter of the year, when young vets had an 11.2 percent jobless rate, but that was still higher than the 8 percent for non-vets their age and more than twice the overall employment rate.
Labor and veterans officials are surveying young vets to find out why. But experts have some theories:
* Some veterans are entering the work force for the first time and aren't adept at explaining their military skills to employers.
* Some who saw combat in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which makes it difficult for them to work and makes employers leery of hiring them.
* Permanent jobs that offer middle-class wages and benefits are more scarce these days in some regions.
Nicholas Legos, 24, of Binghamton, said it was "pretty hard" finding a job after he returned from tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, where he worked in an engineering and demolition unit with the Marines. Without question, the region's overall soft economy was a factor in his difficult job search, Legos said. But he also lacked marketable skills from the military, he said.
"Basically for four years all I did was blow up things, and that's not necessarily what employers want to hear," said Legos, who served in the Marines from July 2000 to July 2004. "I didn't learn anything I could get a job in."
He has worked as a groundskeeper/maintenance man at Ely Park Golf Course for the past 18 months, but before that was on unemployment for six months. It was tough to see friends he knew from Binghamton High School, where he graduated in 2000, with jobs when he was unemployed, he said. The key was to not be discouraged and keep trying, he said. Now, Legos is getting ready to take another job with a private floor-sanding company. He also is a student at Broome Community College, studying fire science. He wants to be a firefighter.
Not all veterans have trouble landing a job. Steven Gregorski, 26, of Binghamton, got a job in April, about three weeks after his discharge from the Marines. Planning can help military workers transition into the civilian world, said Gregorski, who was in the Marines for eight years as an infantryman.
"You've got to do a lot of preparation and goal setting before you get out," said Gregorski, who would not disclose where he works. The planning should begin a year or two before discharge, he said. Gregorski said he sat down and thought about what he was interested in doing and researched jobs in those fields. "I made a long list of careers," he said.
But the geographic region a veteran returns to can play a large role in their ability to find a job, said Maj. John Baker of Marines For Life, which helps Marines transition into life after active duty.
"When a person goes into active duty, they basically lose their personal network," said Baker, who works with Marines in western New York. "Their contacts will change and all the relationships are different. All the connections are different."
Finding a job can prove frustrating for some as they struggle to translate their military experience into qualifications for civilian jobs, Baker said. "A lot of Marines come back and they believe they've proven themselves and are looking for an opportunity to rejoin the community they've left."
Sometimes employers become very specific with the criteria they're looking for in an employee, which can leave Marines out of the pool of candidates.
"They're looking for this person specifically trained in a certain kind of hardware within a certain industry," Baker said, giving an example of targeted recruiting. "Once you bring all those things together, that eliminates a lot of veterans. They don't have those specifics of software or industry. They're more generalists."
Gannett News Service reporter Katherine Hutt Scott contributed to this report.
Ellie