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Job fairs helping veterans make connections with potential employers

JANESVILLE — Many of them have faced physical and emotional hardships that other people have not.

And in today’s ravaged economy, veterans also must cope with a tight job market while transitioning back to civilian life.

In Rock County, which continues to register among the highest unemployment rates in Wisconsin, the task is that much more difficult and time-consuming.

According to a March report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for Iraq War-era veterans was 10.2 percent in 2009, while the jobless rate for veterans overall was 8.1 percent. And the U.S. Department of Labor reports that nearly 22 percent of young vets returning from Afghanistan and Iraq were unemployed in 2009.

“Rock County has the seventh-worst unemployment rate of any area in the country,” said Dale Belke, a veterans employment representative in Rock and Green counties. “It’s tough, and the unemployment rate for veterans is higher. So that shows how much of a need there is for something like this.”

Belke was referring to a May 7 veterans job fair at the National Guard Armory in Janesville that he and Charles Jones coordinated. The Rock County event was one of 18 scheduled around the state this year involving the state departments of work force development, military affairs and veterans affairs.

Nine job fairs remain, including July 15 in Platteville, Aug. 28 in Milwaukee and Sept. 9 in Madison.

Read the full story in the May 19, 2010 e-edition of The Janesville Messenger, HERE.