[Witness]

Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard on Tuesday will donate $1 million to military veterans via the new Call of Duty Endowment (CODE), which intends to help stem the high unemployment rate among vets. Unemployment may have hit double digits in the nation last week, but for veterans, finding a job has always had its challenges. The unemployment rate among people who served in the military since 2001 was 11.6 percent in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Other government and private studies show that the percentage of unemployed veterans has been historically higher than the percentage among civilians. Eighteen percent of veterans who left the military in the past one to three years were unemployed, according to a 2008 Department of Veterans Affairs employment survey.

Of those veterans who had found work, 25 percent earned less than $21,840 per year, the VA study said. Fifty-eight percent of recent veterans worked in the private sector and 36 percent had government jobs, according to the study.

"The joblessness rate that [veterans] should have should be far less than the national average, not more," said Activision Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick. "How do you expect people to actually join the military if when they leave the military they can't integrate back into the free market they're supposed to be protecting?"

[...]

The foundation will make its first donation of $125,000 to the Paralyzed Veterans of America to help open a vocational rehabilitation center, the company said.

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Source: The Washington Post