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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Job Problems for Vets Get Higher Profile

When Fernando Smith was in the military, he worked with artillery, tanks and ballistics. A year after leaving the Army National Guard in 2006, however, Smith finds himself unemployed. It’s a predicament the 25-year-old single father of two struggles with, as he thought the skills he earned in the military would surely benefit him in the civilian world. Instead, he’s found the opposite to be true. Military “jobs don’t correlate with any of the jobs on the job market,” he said. “We have to either go back and retrain or get some sort of degree.” Laid off by the security company he worked for earlier this year, Smith now receives unemployment. His search for work has led him to Hector Galicia, a veterans’ employment services specialist with the Economic Development Department in Pacoima. Every day, Galicia encounters veterans in Smith’s situation. He said that very few of the 3,000 veterans who re-enter California daily “have a job waiting for them once they return.” To connect out-of-work veterans directly with job recruiters, the EDD in Pacoima, in partnership with the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley and the three Los Angeles community colleges in the Valley, will put on the “Hire a Hero, Hire a Veteran” job fair Oct. 25 at the Marriott Convention Center in Burbank. As a veterans’ employment services specialist it is Galicia’s responsibility “to facilitate not just training but give them (veterans) employment opportunities and provide them with referrals,” he said. “We provide them with job search records, interviewing techniques, veterans’ services that are available from other entities.” Galicia acknowledges that even the select veterans who have jobs waiting for them upon their return to civilian life sometimes run into trouble. “There’s a policy which guarantees the retuning veterans their position once they are returned,” he said. “There are certain states that allow for this to take place. California is an at-will state. Employers are allowed to discharge this policy without giving a reason for it. They will take a reservist back in for the day, then say, ‘you’re not needed anymore.’ Although, if this is detected, the Department of Veterans Affairs will try to go back and reinforce that statute.” When veterans realize that they don’t have marketable job skills or that they’re no longer wanted in a former place of work, “they become frightened,” Galicia said. “They no longer have the security they thought they would have upon returning.” A former military police officer, Smith figured that he could easily transition to a position in law enforcement. He applied to the Los Angeles Police Department, the California Highway Patrol and several other law enforcement agencies with no success, however. “I started working odd jobs here and there,” he said. “I took jobs that paid $10 an hour, but I felt disrespected because of the plethora of experience I brought to the table.” Shane Cornett, a transitioning military recruiter for Lowe’s, the primary sponsor of the “Hire a Hero, Hire a Vet” job fair, believes that company heads simply don’t realize that the skills veterans have can translate into their line of business. “It may not be tank parts and aircraft parts, but it’s the same kind of stuff, just different products,” said Cornett, an Army veteran. Cornett has initiated Lowe’s participation in military job fairs. The company has also placed advertisements with G.I. Jobs. He describes the veterans he has encountered as “talented, disciplined and self-motivated.” Samuel Lee, human resources managers of Lowe’s in Palmdale, said that the structure of the store’s training program is conducive to hiring veterans or entry-level candidates generally. “When we go to job fairs that are targeted towards veterans, we feel there are a lot of qualified candidates,” he said. “The fortunate thing is that each position is designed with a training program in place. Some positions have longer training times than others. Let’s say, for instance, customer service. There’s a prerequisite that they need to finish to go out on the floor.” Lowe’s efforts to hire veterans has picked up in the past year, particularly in April when its military recruiting team was established. In California alone, Lowe’s hired 345 veterans from April 1 to July 31. At the “Hire a Hero, Hire a Veteran” job fair, recruiters will be on hand for veterans and members of the general population, alike. However, “there will just be a special hour for vets only,” according to Kenn Phillips, director of workforce and education investment of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley. “The fair will serve all of the vets that are going to come back from overseas,” he continued. “When people think of veterans, they think individuals that could be 60 or 70 that maybe went to the Korean War or Vietnam. These are recent returning vets.”

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