SAN ANTONIO - Not more than a month ago President Barack Obama announced Operation Iraqi Freedom was coming to an end, "We are ending a war, not with a final battle but a final march toward home. This is an extraordinary achievement nearly nine years in the making.”
By the end of December, nearly 44,000 troops had come home. That’s the good news. But those returning troops combined with big proposed cuts for the military could cause some difficulty for local job markets.
The economy still isn't stable and unemployment numbers aren't great. Add thousands of returning vets to that equation and you could have a big problem. But there is one state agency that's already preparing for the surge.
When Operation Iraqi Freedom ended families across the country celebrated. Some of those service men and women will choose to reenlist. But with the military looking a significant reduction in force (RIF), not everyone will have that option.
"What's not going to happen is, they're not going to come back from Iraq and Afghanistan and Europe and come back and they step off the plane and now they're all unemployed,” Shawn Deabay, Texas Veterans Commission Employment Director, explained.
Here's how the reduction in force will work for the army. Right now they have about 562,000 active members. With the recent draw down they'll cut 15,000 immediately. It’s estimated, by 2016 the Army will have reduced their forces by another 27,000 troops. But with the new military budget coming out in February, some officials are predicting the army could be reduced from 562,000 troops to 490,000.
“As they drawn down and people start getting out it's going to have an impact on us,” Deabay noted. “The unemployment rate would go up, I would imagine, would go up because the jobs are not going to increase. But the number of vets are going to increase."
Shawn Deabay is with the Texas Veterans Commission. The agency's goal is to help veterans find a job in the real world once they leave the military. They have 170 counselors working out of Texas Workforce Commission offices across the state. And they’ve also started to actively reach out to companies who could benefit from having a veteran as an employee.
"The advantage we have is we have vet education, we have claims counseling, we have the fund for veterans assistance, we have employment all under one umbrella,” Deabay added.
Shawn knows the reduction in force is unavoidable and the surge of veterans will happen. But he says his agency is prepared.
