The Department of Labor (DOL) was required by law to provide employment workshops to veterans and their spouses in a pilot program. In response, DOL used the same 3-day employment workshops for the pilot that it provides to servicemembers on military bases as part of the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) in order to implement the pilot within time and resource constraints, according to DOL offi

About half of the almost 17,000 veterans who entered the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) program in fiscal year 2003 and received employment-related services were placed in suitable jobs, one-third left the program, and most of the others are still participating. It often took veterans 6 years or more to achieve success, due in part to veterans

About half of the almost 17,000 veterans who entered the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) program in fiscal year 2003 and received employment-related services were placed in suitable jobs, one-third left the program, and most of the others are still participating. It often took veterans 6 years or more to achieve success (see figure), due in par

Of the 9,215 veterans who entered the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Independent Living (IL) track within the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) program in fiscal years 2008 to 2011, most were male Vietnam era veterans in their 50s or 60s. Almost 60 percent served in the U.S. Army, and fewer than 1 percent served in the National Guard or Reserve. The most prevalent disabilities

In the wake of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of current and former military servicemembers are undergoing a transition between their military service and their civilian employment. Congress enacted the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) to protect the employment and reemployment rights of federal and nonfederal employees when they

Labor and VA have implemented some elements of their agreement to coordinate efforts, but face challenges executing the agreement on the state level and lack a complete plan for implementing and assessing the progress of the agreement. Labor and VA have implemented one element of the agreement--establishing three joint work groups--but have only partially implemented or taken no action on the oth

Performance information for the DVOP and LVER programs provides some sense of services and outcomes for veterans, but is weakened by several factors. In July 2005, Labor adopted new performance measures for the programs, but not all have been fully implemented. For example, states are held accountable for helping veterans get and keep jobs, but are not yet held accountable for their average earni

VETS has established separate roles for DVOP and LVER staff and has provided policy guidance and training to states explaining these changes. Under JVA, states now determine how many DVOP and LVER staff they hire, where to place them within the local workforce areas, and 23 states are planning to use some part-time DVOP staff. There are indications that integrating DVOP and LVER staff into the lo

The Department of Labor's (DOL) Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program (DVOP) and Local Veterans' Employment Representative (LVER) program allow states to hire staff members to serve veterans exclusively. The two programs are mandatory partners in the new one-stop center system created in 1998 by the Workforce Investment Act, which requires that services provided by numerous employment and training

Recognizing that the country's fragmented employment and training programs were not serving job seekers or employers well, Congress enacted the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) in 1988. One of WIA's goals was to create a one-stop center system to help unify the services provided by many programs and give states the flexibility to design services better suited to local workforce needs. Veterans' emp