Report Finds Nearly One-Third of Veteran Job Seekers are
Underemployed
SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
ZipRecruiter,
the fastest-growing online employment marketplace, and the Call
of Duty™ Endowment ("the Endowment"), a nonprofit foundation that
has helped more than 40,000 veterans find high-quality employment, today
announced the release of a national report examining the current state
of U.S. veteran employment activity. Pulling from the tens of millions
of active jobseekers on the ZipRecruiter platform, co-authors Cathy
Barrera (ZipRecruiter chief economist) and Phillip Carter (Endowment
adviser and veterans policy expert) analyzed the resume data of more
than six million job seekers (547,941 of whom were veterans), and found
that veteran job seekers are still struggling to find meaningful
employment after service - with nearly one-third experiencing what
they defined as "underemployment," or employment below their
objective skill level. This is despite the fact that the most commonly
referenced economic indicator - namely, the unemployment rate released
each month by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - shows veterans as
doing better than non-veterans in the job market.
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"Existing public data on veteran employment lacks the granular
information stakeholders and policy makers need to effectively help
veterans transition to the civilian workforce," said Cathy Barrera,
labor economist and former Cornell professor. "With this study, we
wanted to provide a deeper and more nuanced look at the actual,
on-the-ground experience of today's veteran job seekers, in an effort to
help better inform and direct veteran programs and investment decisions."
As veterans comprise 8.3 percent of the U.S. adult population and 6.4
percent of the civilian labor force, the organizations wanted to
quantitatively assess anecdotal evidence that many veterans are
struggling to find employment and/or face underemployment challenges
following their service. By leveraging the aforementioned resume data,
Barrera and Carter set out to identify areas where veterans were
significantly different from non-veterans with respect to their
education, employment, geography, and job search activity. Key findings
include:
-
Underemployment affects more veteran job seekers than non-veteran
job seekers. Nearly one-third of veteran job seekers are
underemployed - a rate 15.6 percent higher than non-veteran job
seekers.
-
Veterans tend to leave their first jobs after military service
faster than non-veterans leave their first jobs, but veteran turnover
is lower throughout the arc of a veteran's career. This may
indicate that immediately following military service, veterans take
the first job available, rather than finding a "best fit" role.
However, across their entire careers, veterans stay longer at their
jobs - with 57 percent of veteran job seekers staying at their jobs
longer than 2.5 years, compared to 42.5 percent of non-veterans.
-
Veterans searching for jobs are more likely to be employed during
their search than non-veterans, and are more likely to change jobs in
the next 6 months than non-veterans. More than half of veteran job
seekers (54.2 percent) said they were either "very likely" or
"somewhat likely" to change jobs in the next 6 months, compared to
43.9 percent of non-veterans.
"Underemployment appears to disproportionately affect veterans, impeding
their economic success after military service," said Carter, a former
U.S. Army officer who now directs the Military, Veterans and Society
program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), teaches law at
Georgetown University, and is an adviser to the Endowment. "However,
current government statistics barely notice the underemployment
phenomenon, and do not begin to constructively address it through
improved training, job search and network programs, among other
approaches."
For additional insight on how veterans serve as assets to the U.S.
workforce, the two teams also surveyed 54,000 job seekers within the
ZipRecruiter platform (5,410 of whom were veterans) regarding their
sentiments towards employment and their job search, as well as 2,225
employers (247 of whom were veterans) regarding their perceptions of
veteran employees. Key findings include:
-
A majority of employers report that veterans perform "better than"
or "much better than" non-veterans. Employers are more likely to
view veterans as a positive asset to their companies compared to their
non-veteran peers. 59.1 percent of employers reported that veterans
perform "better than" or "much better than" their non-veteran peers,
with 37.5 percent saying they performed "about the same" as their
non-veteran peers. Additionally, a slightly higher rate of
satisfaction with veteran job performance was reported by employers
with a formal veterans hiring program - with 66.9 percent saying their
vets performed "better than" or "much better than" non-vets, compared
to 55.9 percent of employers without a formal vets program.
-
Among respondents surveyed in the employer category, those who were
veterans were significantly more likely to report the presence of a
"vets program" at their firm than non-veterans. 46 percent of
veterans questioned under the employer survey said their firms had a
vets program, compared to just 17 percent of non-veterans.
-
Experience, perseverance, leadership and directly-relevant skills
top the list of desirable qualities that employers find attractive in
veterans. Roughly one-fifth of employers ranked "experience" as
one of their top factors for the attractiveness of veteran hires,
followed closely by "perseverance and/or work ethic." Approximately
one-sixth of employers ranked leadership or relevant skills as one of
their top three factors for new hires.
As two organizations both dedicated to helping Americans and veterans
find meaningful work, ZipRecruiter and the Endowment partnered to
conduct this report with the goal of generating awareness around the
unique challenges faced by today's veteran job seekers, in addition to
the value they bring to the U.S. workforce.
"Unfortunately, government employment numbers don't account for veterans
who are underemployed or those who have stopped looking for work
altogether," said Dan Goldenberg, the Endowment's Executive Director.
"The government statistics make determinations about individuals'
employment status by relying on data from one question the Census asks
each month: ‘Did
you do any work for pay last week?' Under that standard, mowing your
neighbor's lawn for $20 gets you counted as employed. We need more
relevant and better quality data on the economic health of our veterans.
This new study—thanks to ZipRecruiter's partnership—is one of the
largest of its kind and a great first step on that path."
The full report - Challenges On the Home Front: Underemployment
Hits Veterans Hard - which includes additional findings, graphics
and the methodology, can be found at: http://www.callofdutyendowment.org/vetdata
About ZipRecruiter:
ZipRecruiter is the fastest growing employment marketplace. We have
helped over 1 million businesses and 100 million job seekers find their
next perfect match through partnerships with the best job boards on the
web, curated email alerts, award-winning mobile apps, and one of the
most sophisticated job search algorithms in the space.
About the Call of Duty Endowment:
The Call of Duty Endowment is a non-profit, private foundation
co-founded by Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. The Endowment
helps veterans find high quality careers by supporting groups that
prepare them for the job market and by raising awareness of the value
vets bring to the workplace. For more information about the Call of Duty
Endowment, please visit www.callofdutyendowment.org.
ACTIVISION and CALL OF DUTY are trademarks of Activision Publishing,
Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their
respective owners.
About Cathy Barrera (Co-Author): Cathy Barrera is the chief
economist at the jobs site ZipRecruiter, where she serves as the team's
lead authority on U.S. unemployment, labor and job market issues -
especially as they pertain to ZipRecruiter's core customer base of small
and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). An accomplished labor economist,
Barrera's passion lies in exploring how developments in technology are
reshaping the economy and the way we work. Her background also includes
her role as Assistant Professor of Economics at the Samuel Curtis
Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell SC Johnson College of
Business, where she researched the impact of technology on the labor
market. Barrera received her PhD in business economics from Harvard
University, and an MSc in applicable mathematics from the London School
of Economics.
Phillip Carter (Co-Author): Phillip Carter is Senior Fellow and
Counsel at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where he
directs the CNAS research program on the Military, Veterans & Society.
His research focuses on issues facing veterans and military personnel,
force structure and readiness issues, and civil-military relations.
Carter also currently teaches as an adjunct professor of law at
Georgetown University. Prior to joining CNAS, he managed Caerus
Associates as the firm's chief operating officer, served in the Pentagon
as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and practiced government
contracts and national security law. Previously, Carter served nine
years in the Army in military police, civil affairs and infantry units,
including duty in the Republic of Korea, Iraq, and in the United States.
He writes extensively on veterans and military issues, and serves on
various boards and advisory councils in the veterans and military
community.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171109005412/en/
For ZIP Recruiter:
Beck Media
ziprecruiter@beckmedia.com
or
For
Call of Duty Endowment:
Joy Phillips
jphillips@rubenstein.com
Source: Call of Duty Endowment
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