Vets Jobs Bill Passes House; Obama to Sign

From Military.Com:

In a rare show of bipartisanship for today’s Washington, the House voted unanimously on Wednesday to grant tax credits to businesses that agree to hire veterans.

The measure already has passed the Senate 94-1, and will go next to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature. Obama congratulated Democrats and Republicans for supporting the tax credits, which advocates say are necessary to help reduce veterans’ unemployment.

“No veteran who fought for our country should have to fight for a job when they come home,” Obama said in a statement. “That’s why I proposed these tax credits back in August, and I look forward to signing them into law.”

Obama was Australia en route to Bali for an East Asia Summit.

The tax credits are part of the “American Jobs Act” legislation that Obama sent to Congress in September. With support from both parties, the tax measure and some other veteran-oriented provisions were pulled from the larger jobs act and incorporated into a bill to eliminate a 3 percent withholding tax on government contractors.

Florida Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, called the bill “landmark legislation” that will “help hundreds of thousands of veterans who are currently unemployed.”

The bill includes two tax credits. Under the “Returning Heroes” tax credit, employers would get a maximum tax break of $5,600 per veteran, while the maximum under the “Wounded Warrior” credit is $9,600 per veteran. The exact amount is linked to how long the veteran has been unemployed and whether he or she has a service connected disability.

Eric Shinseki, Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, said the bill’s passage “will put more veterans back to work by encouraging businesses to hire them, and send a message that a grateful nation honors their service and sacrifice and wants to welcome them all the way home.”

Other provisions of the bill will extend up to a year of education and training to veterans of earlier eras; improve transition assistance planning to separating troops; enable troops nearing the end of their active duty time to begin applying for federal jobs; and require the Labor Department to find ways to better translate military skills and jobs into civilian employment; and make it easier for veterans to acquire certificates or licenses needed in the civilian world.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the legislation includes provisions that IAVA has been pushing for since the beginning of the year.

“And with veteran unemployment rising, the timing [of passage] couldn’t be more critical,” he said in a statement.

Bureau of Labor Statistics figures put veteran unemployment last month at more than 12 percent. That’s more than three percentage points higher than the civilian employment rate.

Original article at http://www.military.com/news/article/vets-jobs-bill-passes-house-obama-to-sign.html

CareerProGlobal

Top News from the Past Week and a Special Thank You to Vets

This past week has been jam-packed with federal and military news–so much, in fact, that if I gave each a separate post you’d be here reading until Thanksgiving.  Below are links to some of the best and brightest web articles of the past week.

The top news, of course, is Veteran’s Day.   The staff of CareerPro Global work with the exceptional men and women of the military every day–we are, in fact, dedicated to assisting them with their transitions into civilian life and have been since 1986. We are in awe of the exceptional work and sacrifice given by these spectacular folks. Any many of our own are veterans themselves.

We salute our veterans–as well as those who are still in active duty and those who have given their lives for their country. You have our appreciation and love.

Do you know how Veteran’s Day came to be?  Here is the history of the Day: http://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp

CareerPro Global is working on an exceptionally exciting  high-visibility initiative for veterans that is coming soon from the White House, Joining Forces, and we are giving vets a sneak peek of our material here: http://veteranstransitionhq.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/joining-forces-for-veterans-day/

Learn more about the Joining Forces intiative: http://www.whitehouse.gov/joiningforces/resources

More big news of the day for veterans–assitance from the top: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/senate-passes-legion-backed-jobs-bill-for-veterans-2011-11-10

The Veteran’s Administration opened a new site today to assist veteran’s looking for federal work: http://vaforvets.va.gov/

Has anyone else seen the clever television ads from the Post Office, reminding viewers than many of their workers are veterans? Here’s the story behind the ad: http://federaldaily.com/articles/2011/11/08/bill-would-affect-many-vets-in-postal-workforce-unions-say.aspx

And my favorite topic, UAJobs.gov–it looks like they’ve got yet another change up their sleeves: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1111/110811al1.htm

Joining Forces for Veterans Day

With Veteran’s Day fast approaching, we wanted to give veterans out there some valuable and FREE training!

Here at CareerPro Global, we have partnered with a great company called Mindflash that offers a powerful e-learning software platform. The reason for the partnership is that we are both offering our services for free as part of a much larger, high-visibility initiative for veterans that is coming soon from the White House.

The link to the free training, created by our own Director of Veteran Affairs and Iraqi War Vet  Lee Kelley, is below, and it’s really designed to get you thinking about some of the very first steps you should take as you transition out of the military and into the civilian world. With over a million people projected to get out of the military in the next few years, this training is more important than ever.

GET THE TRAINING!

Future courses will cover topics such as resume writing and interviewing, but as you’ll see, we think that the first steps should be all about defining and refining your vision before developing your actual resume and other application materials.

We really value your feedback! This draft of the course is still a work in progress. We are inviting you to watch it today so that we can get your feedback and make the course even better in time for the White House initiative. Please take a look, enjoy, and then provide us with feedback either here or on our facebook pages.

Veterans Transition HQ facebook page

CareerPro Global’s facebook page

GET THE TRAINING!

Thank you for your service, and Happy Veterans Day.

OPM responds to USAJobs complaints

The Office of Personnel management is finally acknowledging and taking responsibility for the kerfuffle surrounding the launch of USAJobs VG.3.

“We made some mistakes,” OPM’s Chief Information Officer Matthew Perry said at a media briefing. “There are no questions that we got overwhelmed.”

The new site, which went live Oct. 11, received nearly 45 million page views on its second day and a total of 39,642 help desk complaints to date on topics including login difficulties, unreceived email notifications and nonworking search parameters.

“I want to first apologize to all applicants who were dealing with trouble of the last three weeks,” Perry said.

Security concerns drove OPM to bring the site in-house, Perry said. When USAJobs was contracted out to Monster.com in its previous iterations, federal employee job resumes co-mingled with those of the private sector on Monster’s servers, potentially leaving government workers vulnerable to identify theft, according to some on the Chief Human Capitol Officers Council, which includes representatives from every major federal agency.

Though there were errors in search functions, Dillaman said OPM’s response has been effective and the problems have “gone from being a wave of critical system function issues to . . . very specific types.”

Dillaman said OPM could not have prepared for the high volume of initial site traffic. “If you have ever been to the mall the day after Thanksgiving, you know what it’s like when everybody hits the doors at once,” she said, adding that OPM did not have the time necessary to “fine-tune” the site prior to its launch.

Response from users has been overwhelmingly negative for USAJobs 3.0, which faced a five-hour shutdown Nov. 1 despite an increase in servers. About 667,000 applications to date have been submitted on USAJobs 3.0. Perry said that no federal agencies have had difficulties posting jobs to the site.

“I’m not here to declare victory or that we’re done. We will continue to refine this every week,” Perry said.

See the entire story at http://bit.ly/thnBJV.

HHS joins White House initiative to put veterans to work

Would anyone else like a break from talking about the Office of Personnel Management and the USAJobsweb site? I’d love to bring you some positive news today.  Taken from www.govexec.com, this news is especially welcome right before the celebration of Veteran’s Day:

HHS joins White House initiative to put veterans to work

“The Health and Human Services Department is getting involved in the Obama administration’s efforts to hire more veterans, officials announced Tuesday.

“HHS, in coordination with the White House veterans task force, unveiled new initiatives, including an order to its network of 8,000 community health centers to hire 8,000 veterans during the next three years. A separate initiative gives veterans priority in physician assistant training programs.

“To help with veteran hiring, community health centers will use roughly $2.58 billion provided them through the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

“Tom Van Coverden, president of the National Association of Community Health Centers, expressed support for the hiring initiative. “Our national organization has embraced it fully and is ready to accept that challenge,” he said.

“The initiatives follow a recent push to engage the help of the private sector in creating jobs for veterans, rather than going through the legislative process.

“President Obama in August proposed the Returning Heroes tax credit of $5,600 for private firms that hire veterans, and the Wounded Warriors tax credit of $9,600 for hiring veterans with combat-related injuries. Both are part of the American Jobs Act legislation that Congress has yet to pass.

“The second initiative announced Tuesday would give priority grants to physician assistant programs that focus on training veterans and build on previous military medical experience, when possible.

“Physician assistant programs require some previous health care experience, which is why the administration is focusing on veterans with battlefield medic experience. The field is expected to be high growth. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, the sector should increase by more than 29,000 between 2008 and 2018.

“Ensuring veterans know about these opportunities will be a challenge for the White House and HHS, officials said.

“‘All of us at HHS, Labor and [Veterans Affairs] are making sure we connect vets to community health center openings as soon as they’re available,’ said Mary Wakefield, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration.

“Matt Flavin, director of the White House Veterans, Military Families and Wounded Warrior Task Force said the administration plans to include the Defense Department in creating outreach solutions for veterans before they leave active-duty service.

“The administration also hopes the physician assistant training programs will introduce effective outreach ideas to recruit veterans said Flavin, who stressed this is one small part of a comprehensive initiative and more solutions will be announced by Veterans Day.”

(Original story at http://bit.ly/sTTuS6)