Employment Rights of Veternas

(Excerpted from the website of the Department of Veterans Affairs)

VA 1-Stop Service Inquiry Page:

What are my employment rights as a veteran? Do I get preference for Federal jobs?

Since the time of the Civil War, veterans of the Armed forces have been given some degree of preference in appointments to Federal jobs. Recognizing that sacri fices are made by those serving in the Armed Forces, Congress enacted laws to prevent veterans seeking Federal employment from being penalized because of the time spent in the military service. The Department of Labor's Office of the Assis tant Secretary for Policy (OASP) and Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) developed an “expert system” to help veterans receive the preferences to which they are entitled.

Veterans comprise a big chunk of new federal hires. Of the 43,014 new, fulltime permanent federal employees hired in fiscal 1997, about a third were military veterans, according to the Office of Personnel Management. The Federal govern ment employs more than twice the percentage of veterans than the available civil ian labor force; almost three times the percentage of Vietnam-era veterans; five times the percentage of disabled veterans and more than five times the percentage of 30 percent or more disabled veterans. That's from the Office of Personnel Man agement's Report to Congress on Veterans' Employment and demonstrates, Department of Labor officials say, the high priority placed on hiring veterans in Federal government. The department's statistics show that veterans represented 23 percent of all new hires into full-time permanent positions in 1992 and 31 percent in 1997. The Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998, recently signed into law, strengthens and expands veterans' preference in federal hiring. The new law and information on veterans' preference can be found on the Office of Person nel Management website, www.opm.gov.