10 U.S.C. § 1143 — Employment assistance

(a) Employment skills verification. (1) The Defense Secretary, and the Homeland Security Secretary for the Coast Guard when it is not operating as part of the Navy, must give departing members a certification or verification of active-duty job skills and experience that may apply to civilian work, in cooperation with the Labor Secretary. (2) The Defense Secretary must (A) create a database of relevant training for Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force members, and (B) make unclassified information available to States and potential employers so they can allow military training to satisfy civilian licensing or certification requirements. (3) The certification must be made in a form States and employers can authenticate. (b) Employment assistance centers. The Defense Secretary must establish permanent centers at appropriate military installations, and the Homeland Security Secretary must establish them at appropriate Coast Guard installations. (c) Information to civilian entities. (1) To help covered members and spouses find civilian work and training, the Secretaries must create procedures to give employers, organizations, State employment agencies, and other appropriate entities their names and relevant information. This requires the members’ and spouses’ consent. (2)(A) A State may use a certification and, for the five listed military services, ask Defense to confirm it. (B) The response must confirm or deny it within 5 business days. (d) Hiring preference. Defense must ensure that involuntarily separated Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force members and their dependents receive a hiring preference in Department nonappropriated-fund instrumentalities. It is administered like the military-spouse preference in section 1784(a)(2), but that preference has priority. A person may receive this preference only once. Homeland Security must provide the same preference to involuntarily separated Coast Guard members and dependents in Coast Guard nonappropriated-fund instrumentalities. (e) Employment-skills training; Skillbridge. (1)(A) The responsible Secretary may run programs, called “Skillbridge,” providing job and employment-skills training, including apprenticeships, to eligible members for civilian work. (B) Each military-department Secretary must run one or more. (2) A member is eligible if the member has completed at least 180 active-duty days and is expected to leave active duty within 180 days after starting. (3) The Secretary must assign at least 2 full-time-equivalent positions and create each year a funding plan with lines across the future-years defense program under section 221. (4) Each year the Secretary must tell active-duty members about the program, eligibility, and applications, and reach out to employers about Skillbridge and increase the number and kinds of employers who hire participants. (5) The program may use or consult other Federal departments or agencies. (6) It must follow the Secretary’s regulations.