Veterans' Unemployment Down in June

Veterans' unemployment continued to decline in June, to
5.4 percent from 6.3 percent in June 2013.  Reasons could
include better economy, or retirement, or job-search
discouragement. 

Veterans' unemployment has declined over all to 5.4 percent in June 2014 from 6.3 percent in the same month a year earlier, according to the latest BLS.gov report this morning (a day early because of the Independence Day holiday).

This is a significant drop from the 7.0 percent unemployment reported in 2012.

Unemployment among female veterans, 7.5 percent, is higher than among male veterans, 5.1 percent.

Unemployment among female veterans also declined by less, only 0.1 percentage point (from 7.6 percent in June 2013), compared with 1.0 percentage point for male veterans (from 6.1 percent).

There were 10.04 million employed veterans in June 2014, of which 8.77 million were males and 1.27 million were females.

A substantially higher percentage of female veterans to the population were working, 56.5 percent, than male veterans, 46.3 percent.

Employment among veterans of Gulf War Eras I and II has risen during the last year. At the same time, veterans of the Vietnam War, Korean War and World War II eras are dropping out of the labor force and are no longer looking for work (and are therefore not counted as unemployed).

My own estimate, based on 2012 veteran mortality data, is that of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, only about 8,000 (one out of 2,000) are expected to survive the year 2014.