The unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans bumped up from 2.7% in September to 4.3% in November, as the jobs market was buffeted by the U.S. government shutdown, hiring freezes and layoffs in the private sector, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.
The jobless rate for all veterans also rose from 2.7% in September to 3.4% in November, while the overall unemployment rate for the general population ticked up from 4.4% in September to 4.6% in November, which was the highest the unemployment rate has been since the 4.7% rate recorded in September 2021.
Non-farm payrolls added 64,000 jobs in November, exceeding Dow Jones’ prediction of jobs added in the range of 45,000, but most of those jobs were in health care and hospitality, according to the BLS report, which combined data from October and November because of the U.S. government shutdown.
“That’s not a dynamic economy,” Heather Long, chief economist for the Navy Federal Credit Union, said of an economy that relies on health care and hospitality for job growth.
“You’ve really got to twist yourself in knots to call the jobs market good,” Long said. “I’ve been calling it a frozen jobs market” since the last BLS jobs report in September, she said.
An upside for veterans, however, has been in hiring sprees by the Department of Homeland Security and by law enforcement and security in state and local sectors, Long said in a Nov. 21 interview with Military Times.
“That plays very well into the veterans opportunity set,” Long said.
But federal hiring is what the Trump administration wants to avoid, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in response to the BLS report.
“Federal employment has retreated to the lowest level in over a decade, completely reversing the previous administration’s federal hiring frenzy,” Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement.
Any issues with the state of the economy were the result of the lingering effects of the failed policies of the previous administration, Chavez-DeRemer said.
“November’s jobs report shows our economy continues to gain momentum despite the economic mess President Trump inherited from the Biden administration and the reckless Democrat shutdown,” she said.
Despite the Trump administration’s claims, economists and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who has been called a “real dope” by President Donald Trump, have noted a significant weakening in the jobs market.
“Surveys of households and businesses both show declining supply and demand for workers,” Powell said at a news conference Wednesday. “So, I think you can say that the labor market has continued to cool gradually, just a touch more gradually than we thought.”
The numbers in the November BLS report showing a rise in the jobless rates for post-9/11 veterans was a cause for concern but was still within the 3-5% range that could be considered “relatively healthy,” according to Kevin Rasch, a regional director in Florida for the Wounded Warrior Project’s Warriors to Work program.
“It’s still trending below the national average,” Rasch, a retired Navy commander, told Military Times on Tuesday.
“The challenge now is to find what other jobs are out there — who’s hiring,” Rasch added. “There still is hiring going on, but veterans want to know is this job going to be there in the long run or be replaced by technology.”
Much of the concern among veterans about artificial intelligence centers on AI as a threat to job security, Rasch said. He said his organization is working to leverage AI as a tool to help veterans create resumes and prepare for job interviews.
“We’re increasing outreach efforts,” Rasch said. “We’ve seen an uptick in referrals coming through. We’ve also increased our initiatives to try and connect with active-duty service members at their transition point rather than after they’ve been out for a while.”
Veterans also have an advantage over the general population in the number of support groups they can call upon to aid in the job search, said Charlie Moag, communications manager at the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families in Syracuse, New York.
“Veterans have access to a variety of recruitment, training and hiring pathways in almost every industry in our economy that the general population simply doesn’t have,” Moag said in an email to Military Times.
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