I write this as a veteran, an entrepreneur, and a father.
I see countless career fairs, job placement programs, resume workshops and interview prep sessions offered to veterans.
I believe it is time to speak up: if your veteran employment program does not include AI training, you are offering a subpar service to a community already struggling to get hired.
This is the current state of the labor market.
Understand Your Operational Environment
In 2024, the U.S. saw a net gain of nearly 120,000 jobs created by AI. That sounds like good news until you look closer. Those jobs were not distributed evenly. On the contrary, they were concentrated in roles requiring AI fluency. These roles included but were not limited to machine learning engineers, data scientists, and specialists commanding median salaries above $156,000. Meanwhile, entry-level positions were and continue to contract. The tech industry alone shed over 70,000 jobs in 2023 and 2024, and the losses hit junior workers hardest.
66% of enterprises are actively reducing entry-level hiring because of AI.
Our veterans are not competing for senior AI specialist roles. They're competing for the entry-level and mid-skill positions that are disappearing the fastest.
The New Hiring Reality
AI usage has become a primary hiring filter across all roles, including executive positions. This happened faster than most people expected. Companies that started by tinkering with AI tools now REQUIRE AI fluency assessments for knowledge work positions. Others (and many more to come) already ask junior applicants to present AI projects in their portfolios.
The specific tool matters less than the underlying capability. Employers want people who can adapt as tools evolve, and who treat staying current on AI development as a professional obligation rather than a hobby. Performance reviews now incorporate AI utilization metrics and managers will assess how effectively their teams leverage available tools (if they aren't already doing so). Suffice it to say, employers are not waiting for candidates to catch up.
What This Means for Veteran Employment
The job market data reveals something that should not be disregarded: the majority of early AI adopters are in support roles and not technical functions. While this may sound counterintuitive, it tells us that AI adoption is not confined to software engineers and data scientists. Administrative assistants, project coordinators, analysts, and operations managers are all expected to demonstrate fluency in this novel technology.
The aforementioned roles, however, are exactly the roles veterans often target after transition.
By 2030, researchers estimate that 30% of U.S. jobs could be fully automated, and 60% will have tasks significantly modified by AI. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that computer occupations will grow at nearly three times the rate of average job growth over the next decade but the roles declining fastest include paralegals, credit analysts, claims adjusters, and entry-level white-collar positions.
As a result of this tectonic shift, twenty million U.S. workers are expected to retrain in the next three years.
Our veterans should not be playing catch-up. They should be leading.
The Path Forward
Every veteran employment program needs to answer a simple question: Are we preparing people for the job market that exists today, or the one that existed three years ago?
The call to tinker with AI has been positioned as optional for too long. It is now mandatory. Organizations serving veterans must lay the groundwork by building AI fluency into every program, not as an elective module but as a core competency.
Waiting for the labor market to supply AI-native candidates is not a viable strategy. Internal development must proceed in parallel with revised expectations.
The Bottom Line
The data shows a paradox. AI is creating more jobs overall, but it is concentrating displacement among entry-level and mid-skill workers while simultaneously creating high-demand, well-paid specialist roles. This is a labor market splitting in two.
Our veterans deserve better than outdated job placement playbooks. They deserve programs that acknowledge the world as it actually is and prepare them to compete in it.
The choice is binary: transform or fall behind.
I know which one I am choosing. The question is whether the rest of the veteran employment ecosystem will do the same.
