Good Riddance, 2009: The Cost of Being Unemployed

By Barbara Adams, CPRW, CEIP, CMRC, CFRW
www.militaryresumewriters.com and www.careerproplus.com

If you are like the majority of our population, you are delighted to see 2009 pass. With millions of jobs lost leading to state unemployment rates at 10% and above, the real estate market tumble and unprecedented foreclosures, Wall Street collapse, bankruptcies, automobile industry and banking bailouts, business closings, and too many other disasters to list, we can say, "Good riddance, 2009!" There is plenty of blame to go around as we each have our own interpretation of what went wrong. Many of us have either personally experienced or know someone who has been affected by one or more of the aforementioned 2009 issues. With that said, I am glad to say goodbye to 2009.

President Obama has stated many times that the economy and job creation are some of his most important issues to tackle. The President has allocated billions of TARP dollars to jumpstart the economy, which is predicted to lead to job growth. As such, we have reason to be hopeful in 2010. I am starting to see more job openings in the private sector, and have seen nothing but explosive expansion in the federal government sector. Who else, but our government, is tasked with the oversight and management of TARP funds and all the stimulus monies either allocated or already distributed to hundreds of new programs across the banking, automotive, financial, healthcare, and other new economic stimulus programs?

No one wants to be unemployed, but it is a job to get a job. You need to prepare yourself for each job announcement for which you intend to apply. Do you have an updated resume that is accomplishment-focused and content-rich and will take you to the top of the 300-to-500 resume pile? If not, prepare one-immediately.

If you are unemployed, it is critical for you to understand how much salary you are actually losing by being unemployed.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor [Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)], the unemployment rate is currently above 10%. This represents more than 15M people and is the highest national rate since April 1983. Of those who are unemployed, more than 35% have been jobless for 27 weeks or more.

The BLS states the average duration for a job search is 28.1+ weeks.

This means that if you were earning $70,000 a year and it took you 28 weeks (140 business days) to find a new job, you would lose $37,660 by being unemployed!

Professional assistance can help to reduce the averages above. Trimming just a week or two off your job search can save you a significant amount of money, whether in savings or in lost income.

I am providing the Salary/Loss statistics not to make you feel worse, but to encourage you to take action in your job search. Don't just give up because it's the end of the year. We have experienced our busiest December ever, since job openings are on the rise. You might ask, "Where are these job openings?" People who are networking, volunteering, working temporary jobs, contracting, and are aggressive in their job search are receiving job offers. We all know that you can't just rely on posting your resume to a job board; you have to research companies, make contact, follow up, and ask for an interview.

Get motivated, get busy, and get ready to land a job in 2010.

California launches 'Operation Welcome Home'

Multiple Sources

SACRAMENTO, CA Jan. 7, 2010 – California has more returning veterans than any other state. With that in mind, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is committed to making finding them work a priority.

Operation Welcome Home will put 300+ recent veterans to work identifying and making direct contact with the 30,000 heroes returning to California annually to counsel them about benefits and transitional workforce training available to help them enter the workforce and transition successfully from the battle front to the home front. Specifically, Operation Welcome Home:

• Establishes nine regional full-time teams that will assist veterans in finding employment and job training, educational opportunities, housing, mental and physical health care, federal benefits and support for their families
• Launches the California Veteran Corps, a volunteer network to reinforce the efforts of the full-time regional teams.

The Governor's initiative will set aside $20 million in one-time special funds to hire those 300+ veterans

Schwarzenegger also envisions recruiting 1,000 volunteers as part of a new, ongoing CalVet Corps to expand outreach for housing, health care and other services for veterans. The volunteers would help participants access services provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, municipal governments, professional organizations and charities. They also would stay in touch with the veterans to monitor their progress.

Operation Welcome Home grew out of Schwarzenegger's pre-Thanksgiving surprise visit to troops stationed at Camp Victory in Baghdad. The trip convinced Schwarzenegger and his advisers that more had to be done for military personnel as they transition to civilian life.

The briefing paper notes that nationally, combat veterans generally have high rates of unemployment, homelessness, substance abuse and mental health problems. They also are more likely to commit suicide than most other groups.

But Schwarzenegger also wants to stress that most veterans have returned with an education and other skills that they want to channel into solid jobs.

"Veterans have cutting-edge training and exceptional leadership skills," the briefing document said. The new program, it said, will "help transfer military training to California's labor force."

Schwarzenegger has listed benchmarks to determine whether Operation Welcome Home succeeds. Among them: seeing whether veterans' rates of unemployment and homelessness eventually drop, whether more veterans enroll in college, and whether more veterans are screened and treated for mental illness related to combat.

For more information:
www.veterans.ca.gov

Guard, Reserve Encouraged to Honor Employers

By Master Sgt. Mike Smith, National Guard Bureau

ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 5, 2010 - Providing pay and benefits during deployments, sending care packages to deployed employees, allowing time off, and celebrating military service with send-off and homecoming ceremonies are just a few commitments that the Guard and Reserve's top employers are honored for each year.

Officials here are asking Guard and Reserve servicemembers to speak out and honor their patriotic employers.

With ongoing global operations, support from employers for Guard and Reserve service is more critical now than ever, said Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve officials.

The ESGR's mission is to gain and maintain employer support for Guard and Reserve service by recognizing outstanding support. It also increases awareness of the laws governing Guard and Reserve service and resolves potential employer-servicemember conflicts through mediation.

Guard and Reserve leaders continually stress how critical the support of families, communities and employers are to the defense of the nation.

"If you added up all of your family members and all the employers you touch, we have over a million people who directly know what we do with the National Guard of the United States," said Gen. Craig R. McKinley, the chief of the National Guard Bureau.

Guard and Reserve service-members can nominate their employers for the Patriot Award at www.esgr.org and the Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award at www.freedomaward.mil

The Patriot Award recognizes all employers with a certificate and an accompanying lapel pin. Nominees are considered for other awards and recognition based on their level of support.

The Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award is the highest in a series of employer recognition awards given by the Defense Department. The deadline for nominations is Jan. 18.

Officials said the award was created to publicly recognize employers that provide exceptional support to their National Guard and Reserve employees.

More than 3,200 nominations for awards were submitted to ESGR this year.

Wounded Vets to Participate in First Warrior Games

by Army Sgt. 1st Glass Michael J. Carden,
Army News Services

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2010 – The U. S. Olympic Committee will host the inaugural Warrior Games this spring in Colorado Springs, CO. Some 200 wounded active duty members and military veterans will compete.

Events planned during the Games, May 10-14, will include shooting, swimming, archery, track, discus, shot put, cycling, sitting volleyball and wheelchair basketball, Army Brig. Gen. Gary Cheek, commander of the U.S. Army Warrior Transition Command, said at a Pentagon news conference.

Athletes will be recruited from each of the military services, including the Coast Guard, through an independent selection processes. Many already participate in some kind of training with Paralympics coordinators, but the competitors also will train with Olympic and Paralympics coaches at the Olympic training facilities in Colorado for about a month before the actual competitions, Cheek said.

The competition is open to military members and veterans with bodily injuries as well as mental wounds of war, such as post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury.

The Army will be represented by 100 soldiers chosen out of a pool of almost 9,000 wounded warriors. The Marine Corps will send 50 competitors, while the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard will send 25 each, Cheeks said.

"The value of sports and athletic competition and the fact that you can get great satisfaction from what you do is really what we're after," he said. "And we're really looking for this opportunity to germinate this program in May and have it get bigger and stronger."

The goal isn't necessarily to determine the best athletes, but rather to maximize wounded veterans' abilities, and to show them their true potential through competitive sports, he explained.

"While we've made enormous progress in all the military services in our warrior care, ...it's not enough," the general said. "And what we have to do with our service-members is inspire them to reach for and achieve a rich and productive future -- to defeat their illness or injury to maximize their abilities and know that they can have a rich and fulfilling life beyond what has happened to them in service to their nation."

The general added that an Olympic-style event will challenge those servicemembers to prove to themselves that they have abilities within them that they can carry over into everyday life.

"Our hope is that, by doing this every year, we can extend that down into all of our warrior care programs ... of increasing adaptive sports and physical activity and defeating these wounds," he said. "From that, it becomes part of the life of that service-member, and it will expand into their everyday life and all the things that they do."

Adaptive sports rehabilitation has proven time and again to have a positive, long-lasting effect on wounded warriors, said Charlie Huebner, Paralympics chief for the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Huebner noted that adaptive sports have positive effects on wounded veterans in their continued education, family life and in the work force, though that's not the Paralympics' goal.

"The outcomes that we see every day utilizing physical activity as part of the rehab process -- higher self-esteem, lower stress levels, lower secondary medical conditions ... young men and women pursuing higher education at a higher level, young men and women being employed at a higher level -- those are outcomes we see every day with the population we serve," he said.

Since 2003, the Paralympics have worked in partnership with the Veterans Affairs Department, providing adaptive sports therapy to veterans. And through the annual Warrior Games, Huebner said, he hopes to expand their standing commitment to veterans and service-members.

"Our armed forces are the best in the world," he said. "And our athletes want to be the best in the world at the Olympic and Paralympics games. That is a core part of what we do at the U.S. Olympic Committee."