Lydia Dobyns
One million military service members are set to transition to civilian life between 2011 and 2016. With current unemployment rates alarmingly high among young veterans, this upcoming wave of veterans entering the civilian workforce challenges us all. Thousands of organizations including USAA, Starbucks, Amazon, General Electric and General Motors have set veteran hiring goals, and they are having a real impact.
Veteran unemployment has fallen from around 10 percent in 2012 to near the national average (6.7 percent) in 2013. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz explained, “This is just good business. This is not charity. This is not pity. This is the right thing to do for them and for us.”
Doing the right thing is one of the ways we work together to strengthen community. As former president Bill Clinton said, “Our mission in this new century is clear. For good or ill, we live in an interdependent world. We can’t escape each other. Therefore, we have to spend our lives building a global community of shared responsibilities, shared values, shared benefits.”
Read the blog at Huffington Post