Wal-Mart will hire every veteran who wants to trade their camo fatigues for khakis and dark-blue polos, the company announced Tuesday.

“Sadly, too many of those who fought for us abroad now find themselves fighting for jobs at home,” Wal-Mart U.S. President and CEO Bill Simon said in a speech before the National Retail Federation. “Not every returning veteran wants to work in retail.  But every veteran who does will have a place to go. We project that Wal-Mart will hire more than 100,000 veterans over the next five years.”

As of December 2012, the unemployment rate for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was 10.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The current national unemployment rate is 7.8 percent. By the end of 2012, there were 226,000 unemployed Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

More from Ben Popken@ Today

Posted by Libergirl