Veterans Employment Data

Yesterday at an event at the Labor Department, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry said he wasn't going to set a quota on how many veterans federal agencies should hire, but that his goal would be to increase their numbers year on year. The 2008 figures are out, and they show that veterans have a solid foothold in the federal workforce, even if they aren't a huge presence. Veterans are 8.3 percent of the civilian workforce. Disabled veterans though, appear to face some of the same challenges their disabled civilian peers face in finding federal employment. Disabled vets are only 0.8 percent of the civilian workforce, and 30 percent or more disabled veterans are a mere 0.3 percent of civilian workers. I'd imagine that the actual measurements for how well the initiative succeeds will have be based on the 2009 numbers.

But these figures suggest that the Veterans Employment Council will do well to address issues about how agencies perceive disabled workers, whether they're veterans or not. If people see an applicant's disability rather than their skills, much less their veteran status, they could miss opportunities to hire fantastic workers.