Michelle Obama, Jill Biden Promote Jobs-for-Veterans Program

First lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden on Thursday celebrated the fifth anniversary of a White House effort aimed at easing the transition from military to civilian life by encouraging companies to hire veterans and military spouses – a program they praised for helping cut veteran joblessness in half since 2011.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos joined Obama and Biden at a press conference with representatives from more than 40 companies that participate in the program, known as Joining Forces, and vowed to boost the tech giant's role in the effort. Amazon doubled its number of veteran employees by hiring more than 10,000 veterans and military spouses since 2013, and Bezos pledged that his company will hire 25,000 more during the next five years.

Bezos said his company will also train 10,000 additional veterans and military spouses in cloud computing, "providing a gateway into a high-demand, good-paying field."

"We believe this is the right thing to do for our veterans and [military] spouses," he said. "And it's the right thing to do for our hundreds of millions of customers. And we are excited to keep hiring and training these incredible leaders."

Companies participating in the program announced commitments to hire more than 110,000 veterans and train nearly 60,000 vets and military spouses over the next five years, primarily in the fields of aerospace, telecommunications and technology.

The Joining Forces program works with public- and private-sector employers to help veterans and their families apply for jobs and seek training during the sometimes stressful adjustment from military to civilian life. Obama credited Joining Forces with helping dramatically boost the hiring of veterans and their spouses since the effort launched in 2011, saying that more than 1.2 million veterans and spouses have been hired or trained through the effort.

"Today is about making sure that when our young men and women return from war they are welcomed home with a good-paying job," Biden said. "They confront challenges that most Americans never have to face."

The jobless rate for veterans who served in active duty since 2001 declined from 12.1 percent in 2011 to 5.8 percent in 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for all veterans was also cut in half during that time period, from 8.3 percent in 2011 to 4.6 percent in 2015.

Servicemen and women in the military are already doing jobs that would be of use in fields like technology, Obama said, adding that a challenge facing the more than 200,000 veterans transitioning to civilian life each year is getting military skills recognized when seeking job certifications.

"If they can set up wireless networks in Baghdad or do satellite recon in the mountains of Afghanistan, I am pretty confident they can handle whatever is happening in Silicon Valley," Obama said. "Whatever job you need to fill, there are plenty of people doing that job right now in the military who will be ready to succeed in your company on Day One."

Kathleen Carroll, a global talent acquisition leader at Amazon who served with her husband in the Marines, said Amazon took steps to ease her transition to civilian life when she applied for a job at the end of her service. She said Amazon has hired military spouses into roles that can move with their families when military deployments change, adding that a group at the company called Amazon Warriors also helps build community among veterans working at the company.

"Our teams know that having a strong internal network for veterans and military families will make the transition easier," Carroll said. "Through Amazon Warriors, we have created mentorship programs and organized volunteer opportunities like sending care packages to troops deployed overseas."

The first lady called for companies participating in Joining Forces to "keep up this momentum" to boost employment for veterans.

"No matter who is in the White House next, this should continue to be a national priority with national leadership coming from this building," Obama said.