Now hiring veterans: Virginia helping America’s heroes

Companies participating in the new Virginia Values Veterans (V3) program hired 1,451 veterans between July and September of this year. That’s an impressive and welcomed statistic. It is good to see that both state and business leaders in the Commonwealth are reaching out to our greatest heroes.
Through the V3 Program, companies have made public commitments and goals to increase employment opportunities for state veterans. With more than 550,000 veterans in Virginia’s labor force, the Commonwealth boasts the highest labor force participation rate at 68.1 percent among veterans in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And those numbers will most certainly continue to grow thanks to the V3 program.

Key to the success of the V3 initiative is those companies working with the state administration to hire more veterans.
The V3 program was established to assist veterans with one of the most integral keys to a successful transition: finding employment that will allow them to draw from the wealth of skills learned during their military career and apply those skills effectively in the civilian workforce, according to Virginia Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs John C. Harvey Jr.
Adding to the success of the V3 campaign is the fact that the state’s veterans are eager to work, well-educated and highly trained for a successful civilian career, as correctly noted by Commonwealth Commissioner of Veterans Services John L. Newby II.
Virginia became the first state to have an official state program dedicated to training employers on the value of hiring veterans in 2012.
Since its inception, 230 V3 companies have set goals to hire 8,150 veterans. This latest quarterly report brings the total number of veterans hired to date to 6,636.
We applaud the Commonwealth of Virginia, and those private businesses, that are stepping up in support of Virginia’s veterans.