Education
The relationship between educational attainment and employment has long been established. Research has found the higher the education attainment, the lower the unemployment rate. Programs implemented to help Veterans and their families gain the knowledge and skills necessary for employment in today’s workforce will support national competitiveness.
Gold Card Initiative
The Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) have joined forces to develop the Gold Card Initiative. The program provides post-9/11 veterans with intensive and follow-up services, necessary to their success in today’s job market. Eligible veterans can present their Gold Card at any One-Stop Career Center to obtain enhanced intensive services, including up to six months of follow-up, job readiness assessment, referral to job banks, and much more. To learn more, visit
http://www.dol.gov/vets/goldcard.html.
My Next Move for Veterans
DOL/ETA have also created My Next Move for Veterans, an online tool that allows veterans to enter information about their experience and skills in a field, and match it with civilian careers that put that experience to use. The site also includes information about salaries, apprenticeships, and other related education and training programs. To learn more, visit
http://www.mynextmove.org/vets.
National Resource Directory (NRD)
The National Resource Directory (NRD) is a partnership among the Departments of Defense (DOD), Labor (DOL) and Veterans Affairs (VA). The information contained within the NRD comes from federal, state, and local government agencies; veterans service and benefit organizations; non-profit and community-based organizations; academic institutions; and professional associations that provide assistance to wounded warriors and their families. It provides access to services and resources at the national, state, and local levels to support recovery, rehabilitation, and community reintegration, and includes benefits and compensation, education and training, employment, family and caregiver support, health, homelessness assistance, housing, transportation, travel, volunteer opportunities and other services and resources. The NRD’s Veterans Job Bank connects unemployed veterans to job openings with companies that want to hire them. The partnership between leading job search companies enables employers to tag job postings for veterans. It launched with more than 500,000 job listings, and includes employer and job board job postings, tagged on their own websites. To learn more, visit
http://www.nationalresourcedirectory.gov/ and http://www.nationalresourcedirectory.gov/home/veterans_job_bank.
Veterans Opportunity to Work Act of 2011
The Veterans Opportunity to Work Act of 2011 overhauls the military’s Transition Assistance Program (TAP), creating a job retraining program that will help 100,000 veterans, who have been unemployed for 26 weeks or more. This legislation also extends the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program (HVRP) through fiscal year 2012, authorizing $50 million for the DOL to provide grants to agencies and organizations that provide job placement, training, and vocational counseling to homeless veterans. Further, the act provides up to $5,600 in tax credits for employers who hire veterans, who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks, and up to $9,600 for hiring disabled veterans, who have been unemployed for longer periods of time. To learn more, visit
http://veterans.house.gov/vow.
Franchise Education for Veterans Act (H.R. 3351)
The Franchise Education for Veterans Act (H.R. 3351) is new federal legislation that allows veterans interested in purchasing a franchise business to use up to $15,000 in GI Bill funds to pay for franchise education and training programs. To learn more, visit
http://www.franchise.org/Franchise-News-Detail.aspx?id=55398.
Veteran Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP)
Veteran Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP) for applications in order to retrain 99,000 veterans to meet and qualify for job demands. VRAP is the cornerstone of the VOW to Hire Heroes Act of 2011, and program funding will cover up to 12 months of educational programs for qualifying veterans. This is equal to the monthly full-time payment rate under the Montgomery GI Bill – Active Duty rate, currently at $1,473 per month. Upon completion of the program, DOL will offer
employment assistance to every veteran who participated. To learn more visit,
http://benefits.va.gov/vow/education.htm or http://www.benefits.va.gov/VOW/.