Veterans offered smooth transition to post-military civilian sector occupations

In the past four years, millions of People's Liberation Army veterans have been given help landing appropriate jobs after retiring from the military, including new civilian jobs working as primary school teachers or police officers, said China's top veterans affairs authority, as the nation is endeavoring to make former military personnel a group respected and revered by the whole of society.

Since 2018 when the Ministry of Veterans Affairs was established, a total of 1.85 million veterans across China have been offered government employee positions at various levels and with several public agencies, said Ma Feixiong, vice-minister of veterans affairs, at a news conference held on Friday by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

For those seeking nongovernmental sector jobs, 2.26 million veterans have received various forms of help in terms of entrepreneurial training and guidance on reentering the civilian sector economy.

"We have issued a series of favorable job policies to help veterans shift their careers successfully into new fields," Ma said, referring to a guideline released in June which aims to encourage more deserving veterans to teach at schools.

However, teaching is not the only post-military career within the category of "appropriate industries" chosen for ex-military, said Yu Jingsen, director for employment and entrepreneurship at the ministry.

"We have helped more veterans to join police forces, and become emergency responders and firefighters as well as seafarers," Yu said, adding that the ministry has guided local governments to hold a total of over 20,000 job fairs, with 12 million openings on offer.

Veterans affairs departments at all levels have signed with 13,000 enterprises across China to offer more than 1 million jobs for veterans, with over 300,000 individuals having realized career shifts, he added.

The official said more adaptive education and training programs have been created to address the "major challenges" of bridging the very different skills needed in military and post-military positions.

"We began offering adaptive training since 2019 to help veterans readjust to society as soon as possible," Yu said, adding that 520,000 veterans have attended the training sessions so far.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, more than 57 million military personnel have reentered civilian life, according to official statistics.