In this episode of Work in Progress, Patrick J. Murphy, chairman of the Task Force Movement, joins me to discuss job opportunities in cybersecurity, health care, and trucking for American veterans and how these former service members can help U.S. businesses fill their labor shortages.

There are more than 650,000 open cybersecurity jobs, as many as 100,000 open jobs for truck drivers, and more than a million job openings in health care right now in this county, and all those numbers are expected to grow over the next decade.

Each year, more than 200,000 men and women leave the military for civilian life. Task Force Movement is a public-private business initiative to address those shortages by bringing transitioning service members, veterans, and military families into those in-demand industries.

Patrick J. Murphy himself is a veteran of the U.S. Army, the former acting secretary of the U.S. Army, a former Congressman, a vetreprenuer, and chairman of the Task Force Movement.

The Task Force Movement was launched by the Biden Administration in April 2022 to help help close the labor gap in the trucking industry, specifically recruiting veterans and military family members.

“The fact is that we’re between 80,000 to 100,000 truck drivers short. They’re good-paying jobs. The average truck driver will make over $80,000 a year,” Murphy explains. “There’s misperceptions that most truck drivers are over-the-road or overnight truck drivers.” He says that the opposite is true and the majority of them are “home for dinner every night to be with their family.”

Murphy says veterans have the skills and values needed to succeed in this crucial industry.

“Trucking is what drives our country’s economy. We have a saying in the military, ‘Amateurs talk strategy, experts talk logistics.’ To be a truck driver, you need to be good at logistics.

“It’s not just about driving a truck. A robot can do that. It’s really doing the logistics on managing your time, managing when you’re going to pick up materials, drop them off, reporting, have a personal connection, but being safe and secure, not just with your payload, but also with the folks around you as well.

“(Veterans) live by the military values. Leadership, loyalty, duty, honor, self, and service. And then you look at personal courage and integrity.”

Task Force Movement has raised over $10 million with the private sector providing scholarship for training for veterans and members of the military community to get their commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) or certifications if they want to go into the cybersecurity profession.

Murphy and I discuss the growing unmet need for these cybersecurity professionals, jobs and careers that pay well and don’t require a four-year college degree. We also go on to talk about the alarming shortage of health care workers, including the need for registered nurses. The conversation includes a look at some of the veteran supporting agencies helping prepare the military connection community to these jobs and how to find them.

You can hear the full podcast with Patrick J. Murphy here on this page, or download it wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 294: Patrick J. Murphy, chairman, Task Force Movement
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa Panzer
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Download the transcript for this podcast here
You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts