LG Among Tech Firms Vowing big Veteran Hires Under Joining Forces Initiative

Amazon, AT&T, LG Electronics and Samsung were among tech companies marking the fifth anniversary Thursday of Joining Forces, the White House veterans initiative, by pledging that a big proportion of all their new hires in the next five years will be veterans and their spouses. The pledges of the companies collectively will mean the hiring in the next five years of 110,000 veterans and their spouses and the enrollment of 60,000 more in training programs, first lady Michelle Obama told business leaders at a Thursday ceremony streamed live at WhiteHouse.gov. Veterans and their spouses “are simply the best employees around,” Obama said. Training and hiring them “isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do for your bottom lines,” she said. That's “especially true when it comes to tech jobs and industries,” she said. For years, “some of the biggest technological innovations, from the Internet to GPS, have come from the U.S. military,” she said. If veterans now working in military tech jobs “can set up wireless networks in Baghdad or do satellite reconnaissance in the mountains of Afghanistan, I’m pretty confident that they can handle whatever’s happening in Silicon Valley,” she said. LG Electronics USA every day sees “first hand the commitment, skills and values that veterans bring to the tech sector," said CEO William Cho in a Thursday statement. In the U.S., LG employees include U.S. military veterans and spouses who have served in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Gulf Wars, Vietnam, on embassy duty and at bases across the country and around the world, the company said. Amazon will hire 25,000 veterans and spouses in the next five years, and will enroll an additional 10,000 in cloud computing training programs, CEO Jeff Bezos said at the ceremony. AT&T will hire 20,000 military veterans by 2020, the company said in a Thursday statement. “Military experience is great preparation for a successful career at AT&T," said CEO Randall Stephenson. "Veterans’ leadership, integrity and commitment to service make them outstanding employees.” LG isn't disclosing a specific number to be hired, but is vowing a target of up to 10 percent of new hires, "based on annual hiring needs," spokesman John Taylor texted us Thursday.