Veterans face multiple challenges when they make the transition from active service to civilian life. Their most significant challenge is the transition into the civilian labor force. In 2012, the unemployment rate of veterans was relatively high at 7 percent (6.9 percent for male veterans and 8.3 percent for women veterans). The Department of Defense currently spends over $1 billion a year on unemployment compensation for ex-service members. This panel focuses on understanding how successfully recent veterans are reintegrating into civilian labor force. Veterans of today’s volunteer force are much more likely to be married and have children than their peers of earlier generations. They are also more likely now than in the past to be women. Thus, the effects of a difficult transition back to civilian life have consequences not only for themselves, but for their spouses, children and communities as well. Nanda et al help us understand the labor force conditions of women veterans by analyzing the demographic, veteran and employment characteristics of women veterans using the American Community Survey’s 3-year data from 2009-2011 and the Current Population Survey’s August veteran supplement from 2009-2012. Kleykamp and Montgomery draw on approximately 45 semi-structured interviews with soldiers transitioning out of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, and investigate how they decide to leave, what they plan to do as civilians, and how they go about preparing for life after military service. This project asks how veterans' own expectations, attitudes, and approaches in finding civilian work or training affects their post-military work outcomes. In this paper, they analyze the first round of interviews with individuals before their separation from the armed forces. Finally, Lutz and Davin investigate the opportunities and challenges veterans face in seeking civilian employment through credentialing. Their research shows that 100 percent of military occupational specialties can be linked to a civilian credential. The types of occupations held by service members are representative of the range of occupations in the civilian work force, including such areas as human resources, food service preparation, electronics, logistics, automotive, information technology, and healthcare. Moreover, it shows that the benefits of facilitating the credentialing of service members and veterans accrue not just to the service members or veterans themselves, but also to the military services, and ultimately to the taxpayer. The findings from this panel have significant implications for policy makers who seek to reduce veteran unemployment and ensure the smooth transition of service members into the civilian workforce.