Florida launches job-hunting site for veterans

During the recession, unemployment among veterans has tended to track slightly higher than the state's double-digit jobless rate.

Particularly hard hit are recently discharged vets struggling to break into the job market back home.

Now, Florida's 1.6 million veterans have a new virtual job-hunting tool to help improve the odds.

Gov. Charlie Crist and other state leaders converged at the Department of Veterans Affairs regional office in St. Petersburg on Thursday to unveil a new web portal — http://veterans.employflorida.com — to provide easier access to the 190,000 job postings currently on the state-run employflorida.com.

Veterans are steered toward entering their Military Occupational Specialty code and ZIP code, along with their experience, and the site will seek matches for nearby job openings.

"It will search (the database) so the veterans don't have to," Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation director Cynthia Lorenzo said.

The site was funded through $50,000 of a one-time $324,000 federal grant for technology.

"What we're here about today is to help (veterans) when they come back," Crist said. "It's the least we can do."

With unemployment at 11.5 percent statewide, about 126,700 veterans sought job help from the state's workforce system in the 2009-2010 fiscal year, a 27 percent jump from the prior year.