Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon.
My name is Charlotte Bastien. I am the Director General of Field Operations at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
I'm here today with my colleagues Elizabeth Douglas and Sandra Lambe.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to speak about veterans employment. It is an important topic, and we are pleased to provide an overview of what Veterans Affairs Canada does in that regard.
I'll start with Veterans Affairs programs and support, move on to the priority hiring act, and the hire a veteran initiative and finish by talking about Veterans Affairs Canada's partners in this file.
To provide some context, I want to mention that approximately 7,600 men and women are released from the Canadian Armed Forces each year. Men account for 86% of that figure, and women account for 14%. About 1,000 of them are medically released, and the average age at the time of release is 37.
Thirty eight percent of those individuals have five years of service or less, 22% between 6 and 20 years, and 37% between 21 and 35 years.
The majority of those who leave the reserve forces have already had a civilian job. The unemployment rate among veterans is on par with the Canadian rate—around 8%—and the unemployment rate among veterans released following service-related injuries....