2025 Employment Situation of Veterans — 2026-04-28

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 little changed at 3.6 percent in 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The jobless rate for all veterans increased over the year from 3.0 percent to 3.5 percent in 2025. In August 2025, 50 percent of Gulf War-era II veterans had a service-connected disability, compared with 34 percent of all veterans. This information was obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of about 60,000 eligible households that provides data on employment, unemployment, and people not in the labor force in the United States. Data about veterans are collected monthly in the CPS; these monthly data are the source of the 2025 annual averages presented in this news release.