Employment

LVMAC News: Businesses! We Need Your Help and Thinking

The Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, working with the Lehigh Valley Military Affairs Council and others, intends to create a formal Veterans and Military Affairs Council.  More immediately, it is in the process of making a baseline assessment of those chamber of commerce initiatives most needed.   It realizes it must get beyond anecdotal experiences to have informed efforts.  Therefore, as part of the assessment, it must conduct a short survey to uncover what problems — if any — local employers are facing in finding, hiring and retaining veterans as employees. (more…)

By LVMAC, ago

LVMAC Tidbit: Veterans Employment Representative Position Opens in the Valley

DLI LogoFinally, after months and months of delay, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry is advertising openly for someone to replace the Disabled Veterans Opportunity Program Counselor lost at the Lehigh Valley CareerLink in August 2018, due to retirement.  If you are a veteran and wish to help our community’s veterans, and their spouses in certain instances, in gaining secure and good-paying employment upon return from service and for other reasons, this may be one of the best ways to do it.   These civil service positions are federally funded under the U.S. Department of Labor’s US VETS program.  Below are the details provided by Doug Monroe, the remaining veterans employment representative at the CareerLink: (more…)

By LVMAC, ago

LVMAC Tidbit: VR&E Program Now Offers “Tele-Counseling” to Improve Its Service

On 30 November, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program (VR&E) announced its ability to provide “Tele-counseling” to those disabled veterans desiring it.

The VA’s Tele-counseling, or virtual communication system, allows the use of any device with a webcam and microphone to communicate with one of its 1,000-plus Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors (VRC).  This capability reduces travel costs and time for both veterans and VRCs, thereby potentially improving a veteran’s access to necessary VR&E services.  “VR&E’s Tele-counseling service is another example of how VA continually modernizes in support of Veterans’ needs … [It provides] personalized, interactive face-to-face services regardless of location”, according to the Secretary of the VA, Robert Wilkie.
(more…)

By LVMAC, ago

LVMAC Tidbit: Commercial Truck Drivers Are a Critical Profession Needed in the Lehigh Valley

On 20 November, LVB.com (a media product of Lehigh Valley Business) reported, “The trucking industry has a shortage of drivers, and many military veterans get out of the service and struggle to find the right job to be their second career.”  The article stated Mack Trucks is donating one of its locally manufactured Anthem Trucks to the American Trucking Association to help recruit and hire veterans into the trucking industry.

The “Education and Talent Supply Report” recently released by the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation suggests (more…)

By LVMAC, ago

LVMAC Tidbit: Continue Your Service: Now Is the Time to Join the VA?

VA releases data on vacancies as required under MISSION Act

va-logo-featured-news-releaseWhat the VA seeks is a steady, intelligent, reliable, adaptable workers who can tolerate its bureaucracy because a greater good is served and can work in it in creative ways.  Sound like someone who has just completed full-time military service honorably, and is not in the Reserve Components and subject to likely call-up?  It should.

The article below from the VA Office of Public and Intergovernmental Relations suggests good, family-wage employment opportunities, especially if you are willing to travel and relocate, although some of these opportunities now exist in the Greater Lehigh Valley and Eastern Pennsylvania areas.  Regardless, is the idea of relocation new to a professional, military servicemember?  We do not think so — another advantage over your non-veteran peers we have heard.

With over ten percent of its positions vacant and being an organization which is growing, now might be the time to inquire for employment.  And if needed, do not overlook its educational cost offset opportunities.  The G.I. Bill is not the only game in town. (more…)

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Forward Observer: Thinking of Starting or Improving Your Own Business?

LVMAC Poster Art 2005There are 28 million small businesses in the United States according to the Small Business Administration, an amazing 99.7 percent of all the employers.  Small businesses employ over 56 million people in this country, about 57 percent of all the employment in the private sector.  Think about that.  They certainly are an important component to ensuring a thriving economy.  Throughout our history, small businesses have helped to secure the “American Dream.” Importantly, they rely heavily on workers for their success, not on some “robotic arm.”

In that vein of thinking, Pennsylvania is gradually getting around to the addressing the issues of generating veterans businesses in the Commonwealth. (more…)

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LVMAC News: New Employment Website

At the 21 February 2018 Council meeting — and among a gamut of topics including its Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS), the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) for separating servicemembers, grants for homelessness efforts, and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) — Mr. David Cummiskey, Assistant Director in Pennsylvania for the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), introduced the Veterans.gov website.  Although we are convinced personalized, pro-active point-of-service can not be overlooked or replaced, this website is a welcomed addition for beginning the transition to civilian employment or, for older veterans, re-employment.  It needs more marketing. (more…)

By LVMAC, ago