Sec. 552. Pilot program to assist members of the Armed Forces in obtaining post-service employment
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The Secretary of Defense shall conduct the program described in subsection
(c)to enhance the efforts of the Department of Defense to provide job placement assistance and related employment services to eligible members of the Armed Forces described in subsection
(b)for the purposes of— assisting such members in obtaining post-service employment; and reducing the amount of Unemployment Compensation for Ex-Servicemembers that the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Department in which the Coast Guard is operating pays into the Unemployment Trust Fund. Employment services provided under the program are limited to members of the Armed Forces, including members of the reserve components, who are being separated from the Armed Forces or released from active duty. The Secretary of Defense shall execute a program to evaluate the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of utilizing the services of civilian employment staffing agencies to assist eligible members of the Armed Forces in obtaining post-service employment. The program required by this subsection shall be managed by an civilian organization (in this section referred to as the program manager ) whose principal members have experience— administering pay-for-performance programs; and within the employment staffing industry. The program manager may not be a staffing agency. The Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the program manager shall establish the eligibility requirements to be used by the program manager for the selection of civilian employment staffing agencies to participate in the program. To encourage employers to employ an eligible member of the Armed Forces under the program, the program manager shall pay a participating civilian employment staffing agency a portion of its agency fee (not to exceed 50 percent above the member's hourly wage). Payment of the agency fee will only be made after the member has been employed and paid by the private sector and the hours worked have been verified by the program manager. The staffing agency shall be paid on a weekly basis only for hours the member worked, but not to exceed a total of 800 hours. In conducting the program, the Secretary of Defense shall establish— program monitoring standards; and reporting requirements, including the hourly wage for each eligible member of the Armed Forces obtaining employment under the program, the numbers of hours worked during the month, and the number of members who remained employed with the same employer after completing the first 800 hours of employment. The total amount obligated by the Secretary of Defense for the program may not exceed $35,000,000 during a fiscal year. Not later than January 15, 2019, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report describing the results of the program, particularly whether the program achieved the purposes specified in subsection (a). The report shall include a comparison of the results of the program conducted under this section and the results of other employment assistant programs utilized by the Department of Defense. The comparison shall include the number of members of the Armed Forces obtaining employment through each program and the cost to the Department per member. In this section, the term appropriate congressional committees means the congressional defense committees, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate. The authority of the Secretary of Defense to carry out programs under this section expires on September 30, 2018.