January 30, 2006
Media contact: Jeff Schrade (202)224-9093

(Washington, DC) Former Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi will join other witnesses later this week as the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs holds a hearing about efforts to help veterans find meaningful employment, Chairman Larry Craig (R-Idaho) announced today.

The hearing, titled "The Jobs for Veterans Act Three Years Later: Are VETS' Employment Programs Working for Veterans?" will begin at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, February 2, 2006, in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building.  It will be webcast live and archived for later viewing at http://veterans.senate.gov. It may also be audiocast ? during the hearing only ? on C-SPAN's hearings website, located at http://www.capitolhearings.org.

The U.S. Department of Labor recently reported that young veterans (aged 20 to 24) had an unemployment rate of just over 15 percent ? nearly twice the rate of non-veterans in that age group.  In contrast, the current overall national unemployment rate is 4.9 percent, the lowest unemployment rate in four years.  (As a group, veterans are doing even better - the current unemployment rate for all veterans is 3.9 percent.)

In 1999 a commission chaired by Anthony Principi concluded that programs administered by the U.S. Department of Labor Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) needed to be "totally reengineered."  That led to increased scrutiny of employment services for veterans which led to the enactment of the Jobs for Veterans Act in 2002.  The Government Accountability Office recently issued a report assessing the progress in implementing the Jobs for Veterans Act.  The GAO report will be part of the focus of the Senate hearing.

Panel I

? Dr. Sigurd R. Nilsen, Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office

Panel II

? Mr. Wesley Poriotis, Chairman, The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives

? Mr. Joseph C. Sharpe, Jr., Deputy Director, National Economic Commission, The American Legion

? Mr. Richard F. Weidman, Director of Government Relations, Vietnam Veterans of America

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