Where veterans already stand
| Measure | Veterans | Non-veterans |
|---|---|---|
| Unemployment rate, 2025 | 3.5% | 4.2% |
| Share of the civilian labour force, 2025 | 4.9% | — |
| Share of the civilian labour force, 2000 | 10.5% | — |
| Federal IT management workforce | 41% | 59% |
| Living in rural areas | 24.1% | 19.3% |
Unemployment and labour force: BLS Employment Situation of Veterans, 2025 annual averages — BLS notes the 2025 figures are 11-month averages excluding October and are not strictly comparable with other years. Federal IT: OPM FedScope, September 2024, via Pew Research Center. Rural: Census Bureau, Veterans in Rural America, 2011–2015 American Community Survey, against the 2010 Census rural share of the total population.
Public employers in Illinois
15 of Illinois's 102 counties are classified by the USDA as government-dependent, meaning federal, state or local government is a leading employer there. That is the most directly relevant classification on this page: federal technical employment is not only Washington, and veterans' preference plus the special appointing authorities work at every one of those installations, medical centres, campuses and offices.
State and county government, school districts, public utilities and transit authorities run IT operations in Illinois too, and all of them hire without requiring a technology-corridor address.
Rural Illinois
65 of Illinois's 102 counties sit outside every metropolitan area. That matters here more than in most campaigns, because veterans are disproportionately rural nationally — 24.1% live in rural areas against 19.3% of the total population, a gap of 4.8 points.
Which means the rural training problem and the veteran training problem are substantially the same people. The routes that survive distance are the ones to lead with: VR&E and GI Bill funding follow you rather than sitting in a building, online and hybrid programmes are covered, and remote federal and contractor technical roles are a real and growing market.
See also Outside Every Metro in Illinois, which covers the same counties from the schooling side.
What Illinois runs on
Of 102 counties, the most common economic types are farming (21), manufacturing (16), government (15). Where the employers are agricultural operations, processing and equipment services, the technical work already here is the systems those operations depend on — and a veteran who maintained comparable systems in service is closer to that job than almost any other candidate.
What you have already earned
- Post-9/11 GI Bill — 36 months, up to 48. Covers certification exams, apprenticeships and non-degree technical training, not only college. va.gov.
- VR&E, Chapter 31 — a 10% service-connected rating qualifies, and there is no time limit if you were discharged on or after 1 January 2013. va.gov.
- VET TEC 2.0 — technology training, 4,000 seats a year, no prior VA education benefit required. va.gov.
- SkillBridge — your last 180 days of service, with commander approval. skillbridge.osd.mil.
- WIOA priority of service — veterans and eligible spouses go first, by law, in every county. CareerOneStop.
- Veterans' preference and special appointing authorities in federal hiring. USAJOBS.
Rates, seat counts and eligibility rules change. These are the doors; verify current terms with VA or DoD before counting on a number.
By county
Photographs on this campaign are licensed stock used as illustration — not portraits of the people inside the federal counts. Full credits: CREDITS.md.