Unemployment rates of veterans, 2010

The unemployment rate for veterans who served in the military at any time since September 2001—a group referred to as Gulf War-era II veterans—was 11.5 percent in 2010.

[Chart data]

In general, Gulf War-era II veterans had unemployment rates that were not statistically different from those of nonveterans of the same gender and age group.

The unemployment rate of 7.7 percent for Gulf War-era I veterans (who served during the Gulf War-era I, August 1990 to August 2001), was lower than the rate for Gulf War-era II veterans in 2010. The unemployment rate for veterans of the earlier wartime periods (World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam era) was 8.3 percent.

These data are from the Current Population Survey (CPS). For more information, see "Employment Situation of Veterans – 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-11-0306. In the CPS, veterans are defined as men and women who have previously served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces and who were civilians at the time they were surveyed. Data about veterans are collected monthly in the CPS; those monthly data are the source of the 2010 annual averages presented here.