2013 Employment Situation of Veterans — 2014-03-20

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--edged down to 9.0 percent in 2013, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The jobless rate for all veterans also edged down to 6.6 percent. Twenty-nine percent of Gulf War-era II veterans reported having a service-connected disability in August 2013, compared with 15 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 data 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 2013 annual averages presented in this news release. In August 2013, a supplement to the CPS collected additional information about veterans on topics such as service-connected disability and veterans� current or past Reserve or National Guard membership.