2011 Employment Situation of Veterans — 2012-03-20

The unemployment rate for veterans who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces at any time since September 2001--a group referred to as Gulf War-era II veterans--was 12.1 percent in 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The jobless rate for all veterans was 8.3 percent. Twenty-six percent of Gulf War-era II veterans reported having a service-connected disability in August 2011, compared with about 14 percent of all veterans. This information was obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of about 60,000 households that provides information on employment and unemployment in the United States. Data about veterans are collected monthly in the CPS; those monthly data are the source of the 2011 annual averages presented in this release. In August 2011, a supplement to the CPS collected additional information about veterans on topics such as service-connected disability. Information from the supplement is also presented in this release.