Veterans made up 44 percent of the nearly 120,000 full-time hires the federal government made in 2015, The Washington Post reports. That's in keeping with a larger trend: The share of veterans among new government hires has stayed relatively constant since the Obama administration pledged in 2009 to give former veterans preferential consideration for job openings, with that number hovering around 45 percent for at least the last five years.
Some areas of government hired more veterans than others: A full 62 percent of Air Force new recruits last year had military backgrounds, as opposed to 46 percent at the State Department and 21 percent at the Environmental Protection Agency.
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