On a day when the nation's unemployment rate increased—and stocks plummeted—President Barack Obama said he wants more job opportunities for veterans.
He spoke to Friday on the factory floor of in Golden Valley.
Obama urged Congress to pass legislation that would create a Veterans Job Corps, which would help veterans find jobs as police officers, firefighters and in other service industries.
“I believe that no one that fights for this country should have to fight for a job when they return home,” Obama told the crowd. “Men and women that have served in the military have incredible skills that any company could benefit from.”
According to the United States Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for veterans who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces at any time since September 2001 is about 12 percent, compared to the national unemployment rate.
Earlier in the day, the Labor Department announced that the U.S. unemployment rate was 8.2 percent in May, up from 8.1 percent in April. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 275 points by close Friday.
Obama's speech at Honeywell focused on the struggles veterans have finding work.
“If we are going to serve our veterans as they have served us, we must get to work on this,” Obama said. “We must deliver for our veterans.”
He applauded the efforts of Honeywell, a company that set out to hire 500 veterans last year.
“Last year when the White House launched the Joining Forces initiative to encourage companies to hire veterans, we decided to step up to the challenge,” Honeywell Spokesperson Bruce Anderson said. The company exceeded its goal; Honeywell now employees 600 veterans, 65 of which work at the campus in Golden Valley.
“We know that members of the military have transferable skills and we have seen that first hand at Honeywell,” Anderson said. “Our veterans have tremendous work ethic, leadership skills, an understanding of business efficiency and many of them have specialized skills that we put to good use here.”
A crowd of veterans from Honeywell sat behind the president as he spoke. American Legion Department Commander Curt Kruger said he was thrilled to see attention brought to such an important issue.
“Having a job is part of reintegrating back into normal life,” Kruger said. “This has been a problem for some time and I think any effort that helps veterans find work is a good one.”
Golden Valley Mayor Shep Harris hopes other companies will follow the example set by Honeywell.
"As more U.S. soldiers return home from overseas action, our national commitment to providing economic stability for our veterans and their families must remain strong," Harris said. "I applaud Honeywell for its pledge to honor our troops through job skills training and employment, and I encourage other corporations to do the same."
In his 30-minute speech Obama urged Congress to work together on this initiative, and not make it a political game.
After Obama’s stop in Golden Valley, he was off to a fundraiser at The Bachelor Farmer, a Minneapolis restaurant owned by Gov. Mark Dayton’s sons.
This puff piece never gets more detailed than that, on a day when the BLS announced an increase in the unemployment rate and a mere 69,000 jobs created in a $7 trillion national economy! I'm glad the President wants to create job opportunities-- where was he the last 3 1/2 years?
I think the facts speak to the opposite of your political rhetoric, and it's gross generalities without merit that drive us as voters to make poor political decsions when we get involved at the polls. Republicans swooped in during 2010 on a platform of jobs, jobs, jobs and took control of the House and a net 6 seat gain in the Senate. Are you similarly holding them to the same standard of "failure" as you express in your comment?
I think the more important question is where has your elected Gop been? They run the House of Rep. We do have a system, the President and Dems have pushed for jobs bills. The President doesn't get to write a jobs bill and then make it so. He has to rely on the Republican run Congress to pass a jobs bill. I can tell you where Our President has been. He been on the ground basically begging the Rep. run congress to Pass his "Jobs" bill. It focused on the rebuilding of infrastucture, (that makes jobs for Construction Worker), and other things. There are trulely things that can be done. The problem is the Republican party doesn't want to do it. They are throwing you and all of us under the bus and hoping you wont notice. Hoping You won't notice when Mitch O'donnell is on tv saying that their main priority is to make Presidnet a one term president. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthy were even extended, to much Liberal heartbreak. Why? oh because they threatened to shut down the Gov and the Gop was DEMANDING that the Bush tax cuts for the rich be extended for the so called "job Creators" be extended. It was extended. This means that people like Rush Limbaugh gets an extra million + dollars in Government money, Oprah, Paris Hilton etc..Oh those poor rich job creators.
If Obama was a Republican the GOP would be going nuts proclaiming it to be a miracle.
It is kinda a miracle w/the amount of obstructionism on the GOP side. GOP Voters- The only way this nonesense has any bit of hope stopping is when the people who vote for them tell Them. 75-80% of Americans agree that Corporate Welfare (like Gov $ going to Oil Companies making 56 million profits yearly) and tax breaks to the Wealthiest (like Opra, Paris Hilton, Michael Moore-you know the job creators of the world) should stop. Most of us agree that they should stop-so why are the people you elected who have the power to stop them-in fact they threaten to shut down the Gov. if we won't extend the George Bush tax breaks for the "job creators"
Plus Polluting they can also also create working environments and pay that equates to a "sweatshop'"-basically slave labor.
A vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for a man who only cares about the very wealthy and that's it. He doesn't care about the middle class who are being squeezed out of existance while he dodges paying a fair tax based upon his true income which he deceptively hides in foreign accounts and refuses to release a tax return any older than one year for an obvious reason; because he has nothing to hide.
Our reason for going to war way hijacked by diverting our resources, troops and focus to Iraq; something that could have been accomplished through diplomatic channels. Bush senior was smarter than his son and did not enter Iraq during the Persian Gulf War for good reason, it wasn't necessary.