As America Honors Veterans, OpenInvest Launches an ESG Cause to Spotlight the Top 10 Market Leaders that Best Employ and Support our Soldiers

OpenInvest, a leading values-based financial technology company, today unveiled a new Veterans Cause that gives investors visibility into the top companies that support our country’s military veterans. Support Employment of Our Veterans, a new Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) investing value screen, names the leading companies that support veteran employment, career development, and military spouse policies.  

Top 10 Companies Include: 

1. Southern Company

2. Humana, Inc. 

3. Boeing

4. Windstream Holdings, Inc.

5. Comcast NBCUniversal

6. Combined Insurance - a Chubb company

7. Accenture

8. Union Pacific

9. IBM

10. Qualtrics - SAP

Beyond the individual companies, the new portfolio identifies trends across veteran employment spanning industry and occupation over the past year according to companies reporting. 

Industry: 

• Information Technology and Industrial report the highest average percentage of veteran employees (15.5% and 15.4% respectively), while Financials (3.2%) and Healthcare (3.5%) accounted for the lowest percentage of veteran employees. 

• Real Estate experienced the greatest average percent increase 2019 - 2020 year-over-year (42.9%) while Information Technology experienced the greatest average percent decrease (-63.3%) over the same timeframe. 

Occupation: 

• Veterans are more likely to work in labor intensive occupations. In 2019, the greatest positive occupational differentials between veterans and non-veterans were in Production, Transportation and Material Moving (17.1% vs 11.6%) and Natural Resources, Construction, and Maintenance (13.1% vs 8.9%)
• ​Veterans are somewhat less likely than non-veterans to work white-collar jobs. Last year, the greatest negative occupational differentials between veterans and non-veterans were in Sales and Office Work (15.6% vs. 21.4%), followed by Professional occupations (20.9% vs. 24%).
• Veterans are also leaving Sales and Office-related occupations faster than other roles (-0.9% yoy)

The OpenInvest Veterans Cause dynamically informs portfolios by overweighting companies with criteria that include supporting veteran employment, number and percent of veteran employees, number and percent of new veteran hires, and those with policies that accommodate military spouses. All 150+ companies that pass the screen have been identified on Military Times’ Best for Vets list, have received Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) awards, or have received a designation from MilitaryFriendly.

The Veterans Cause incorporates MilitaryFriendly and Military Times’ annual analysis of hundreds of indicator-level data points from company surveys and public disclosures from sources including the US Department of Labor, the US Department of Defense, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

“While we cannot begin to repay our veterans for their sacrifices, we can make a meaningful gesture by investing in the companies who hire and invest in former or retired military service members,” said Josh Levin, co-founder of OpenInvest. “With the help of industry-leading data experts, OpenInvest now offers financial advisors and their clients the ability to easily tilt their investments toward companies that best support our vets and their families.”

More than 200,000 service members transition from the military back to civilian life every year. While veteran unemployment rates are lower than the general population, they are 15.6% more likely to be underemployed than nonveterans and 36% less likely to make a seniority jump when moving into the civilian workforce despite having four or more years of experience than civilians applying for the same job. What’s more, seven out of 10 veterans end up taking a step down in seniority when rejoining civilian life.

For more information and to see how OpenInvest can help you align your portfolio with your values, go to openinvest.com/causes/support-veteran-employment

About OpenInvest

OpenInvest is a values-based financial services company that helps advisors engage their clients and grow their business. We offer environmental, social, governance (ESG) investment management products and impact reporting services. Our investment management solutions use proprietary technology to seamlessly create low-cost investment portfolios tailored to our clients’ values while tracking market indices. Our sophisticated impact reports reflect the tangible impact our clients’ portfolios have on the world. Funded by YC and Andreessen Horowitz, OpenInvest is one of the only VC-backed Public Benefit Corporations. Learn more at openinvest.com.

Contact Information

Melissa Rossiter

Account Manager

VSC for OpenInvest

openinvest@vsc.co