Jordan McGee, a 26-year-old Air Force reservist, clutched his resume in both hands as he introduced himself Thursday to a representative from Nucor Steel at a booth squashed in the middle of 45 others.
McGee, along with friends and fellow reservists Bailey Goree, 22, and Melissa Bull, 26, traveled as a pack through the Hiring Our Heroes career fair Thursday morning in Little Rock. About 100 veterans, servicemen and their spouses went from booth to booth, submitting resumes to local businesses and national corporations.
Tim Green, who conducted a workshop Thursday on all things related to searching for a job, gave attendees a bit of a pep talk before they faced the room full of potential employers.
"You guys are military. You carry yourselves a certain way," Green said. "When people walk in the door, I can tell whether they're military or not. You have leadership skills, and you have a mission."
Hiring Our Heroes, a program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, hosted the career fair at the Goodwill Resource Center, 7400 Scott Hamilton Drive, as part of a nationwide challenge for businesses to hire 500,000 veterans by the end of the year.
According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week, the jobless rate among veterans, though it increased to 6 percent in July, is lower than overall unemployment in the United States. However, the jobless rate for post-9/11 veterans, at 9.2 percent, remains higher than that of older veterans and their nonveteran counterparts.
"I get a little bit concerned. I try to keep up with the data, and I don't understand the numbers," said Maj. Gen. William Wofford, the adjutant general for the Arkansas National Guard. "It concerns me that our younger veterans have a higher rate of unemployment than their nonveteran peers."
Organizers of the career fair said the data are alarming, especially because more servicemen may be returning to the U.S. and civilian life after 2014.
In May, President Barack Obama announced a plan to withdraw most American troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016. He laid out a timetable to reduce the 32,000 troops currently in Afghanistan to less than 10,000 after this year.
Another factor that may pull more servicemen out of active duty and into the civilian job market is the Budget Control Act of 2011, which implements an approximately $259 billion cut to the Department of Defense over the next five years. Because of this, the Army announced in 2013 that it would shrink its active-duty component, as well as its Reserve and National Guard.
"Just look at what's going on with politics right now," said Ernie Lombardi, who organizes Hiring Our Heroes fairs in nine Southern states. "The numbers I'm hearing look like we'll have a million vets out of work in the next five years. That's our mission right there. Our mission today is to put somebody back to work."
McGee's mission Thursday was to find a part-time job that would help put him through college while he continues with 913th Airlift Group as an electrician servicing C-130H aircraft. McGee, who joined the active-duty Air Force at age 18 and switched to the Reserve in 2011, said he hoped some of the employers at the career fair could use the skills he gained during his eight years in the military.
"I want to use some of my electronics background, and my leadership and management skills as well," McGee said. "I'm relying on them."
Metro on 08/08/2014