Sunday, March 9, 2014

Frictional Unemployment Profile: Veterans

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304360704579417083381640004?mod=Your_Money_newsreel_2

The article discusses the disconnect in skills (hard and soft) veterans encounter in returning to the domestic labor market. The programs available to veterans, however, greatly decreases their difficulties. I would be interested to hear what others think about this article, which I found insightful.

3 comments:

  1. Many veterans have definitely had a hard time in returning to the workforce. However, these programs have not only been very helpful to them, but they have also been helpful to the workforce as a whole. Of course, allowing for veterans to gain the higher education needed to obtain a well paying job would allow for them and their families to have better lives. With more people gaining a higher education, though, the productivity of workers increases as a whole, allowing for wages for all to be higher. With these higher wages, more people than just veterans will benefit. Programs such as these would greatly help others, including those who aren't veterans but are not qualified for many jobs anymore. With more programs targeting other groups of people, more people would be able to find jobs more easily, lowering frictional unemployment overall.

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  2. I am a little confused about the article that which you read. You just gave us a blunt summary of the article; then you ask us to go read it and tell you what we thought?? Aren't you supposed to summarize the article and tell us what you thought?? Well, sorry if this sound a little harsh but I am having a hard time commenting because there isn't much to talk about based on your summary.

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  3. Chrissy: I agree with you about the programs being beneficial to the economy as a whole because they boost labor participation and don't leave soldiers out to dry.

    Bien: My brief description was open-ended, allowing the commentator to make their own discussion of what he thought was most important about the programs. I wanted to see what difficulties people might envision for veterans outside of the article. That is assuming, of course, you read it. I'm not going to cut and paste everything that's important.

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