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One of President Obama’s big applause lines in his State of the Union address last month was when he said this: “Over the next year, another 34,000 American troops will come home from Afghanistan. This draw-down will continue, and by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over.”

That means tens of thousands of soldiers will leave active duty for active job-hunting over the next several years. But it won’t be easy, as an annual report on veteran employment will confirm when it’s released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today.

Unemployment among veterans aged 25 to 34 stood at 9.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. For non-veterans in the same age group, unemployment was only 7.6 percent. Veterans 18-to-24-years-old face an unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent right now.

BLS economist James Walker says young vets face some unique challenges in an economy in which jobs are hard to find for everyone, and youth unemployment is already high.

“Gulf War II-era vets, recent veterans—a large proportion are high school graduates," says Walker, "or they have some college or associate’s degree." But, he adds, while they've been training and fighting, their civilian counterparts have been finishing BA's, getting job experience, moving up the career ladder.

Walker thinks most Gulf War II-era veterans will eventually catch up to the rest of the population, just like their elders did after serving in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. In fact, older veterans, decades after deployment, have slightly lower unemployment rates than the general population.

But Ted Daywalt, president of VetJobs.com, a VFW-sponsored job site for veterans and employers (and himself a Navy veteran), says some young veterans face a challenge that their predecessors didn’t. He says their employment and advancement opportunities are being stymied by repeated lengthy deployments in the National Guard and Army Reserve.

Daywalt offers a hypothetical example: “So you’ve got a National Guard soldier who just came back from fighting in Afghanistan for 18 months. He comes home, he’s been on the job for perhaps 60 days, and then all of a sudden there’s a (range) fire and he needs to leave again for 30 days. Employers can’t run their businesses that way.”

Daywalt points out that employment discrimination is illegal under the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA). Employers have to keep a Reservist’s or Guard member’s job open for them until they return from deployment. But Daywalt says employers have multiple ways to get around the law, and many still prefer to hire job-seekers who won’t be called away multiple times on short notice.

BLS economist James Walker points out one more challenge facing veterans who are now leaving active duty and entering the job market: Shrinking employment opportunities in the federal government due to budget cuts and the sequester.

Walker says approximately 14 percent of recent vets work for federal, state and local government, compared to just 2 percent of the same age cohort in the general population. That’s in part because of government programs that encourage hiring of veterans, including those with service-related disabilities. Approximately one quarter of Gulf War II-era vets report some level of disability from their recent service. Walker says as federal hiring slows down, Iraq and Afghan war veterans will be among the first to feel the squeeze.

Indians love weddings, and Indian weddings need a lot of bling. In fact the giving of gold jewellery is a big part of the event. To get an idea of just how big a deal it is, I went to a wedding in Calcutta. I was trying to find out how people could get so much gold together.

Guest Sourbee Kampani thinks preparation is everything.

"For my daughter we have started from the minute she was born. I think it is very important. At weddings we have to give some amount of gold. Gold is a must," says Kampani.

Her fellow wedding guest Shubra Agarwal agrees.

"Gold is a woman's best friend," Agarwal says, "and it belongs to that woman and nobody can take it from her".

Bride-to-be Tania Sadhu also didn't see anything wrong with India's golden obsession.

"You cannot think of a wedding without some kind of yellow bling around. Gold is a status symbol," Sadhu says.

However, the government doesn't share Sadhu's enthusiasm. India is the world's largest importer of gold. Every year the country brings in more than 900 million tonnes. The government is worried that people are spending too much money on the imported precious metal. Huge amounts of cash are flowing out of the country. So in response, they've raised the import taxes on gold. But will it work?

Watching the Calcutta wedding with me was business analyst Mudar Patherya. He wasn't exactly hopeful. 

"Do you actually believe here in India people will give each other equity shares when they get married. What will you hang round your necks. A certificate?" Patherya asks.

But weddings are just getting bigger and bigger, and so people are buying more and more gold. The Indian government may have to raise taxes again, but it appears that it will make little difference to people here.

In the world's largest democracy, the only thing that glitters is gold.

You may not know this, but the most popular way to sell on the web is pay to play. Google Shopping requires sellers to pay to be listed for price comparisons. But not all companies are eager to take part. E-commerce giant Amazon doesn't want to pay, so Google Shopping results don't list Amazon.

The classic test of this is to search for an Amazon Kindle e-reader. Google Shopping has the item listed from third-party sellers EBay, Staples, Quill.com, but not Amazon itself, the company that actually makes the Kindle.

If the system worries you, you could always ditch pay to play shopping engines, or you could soon try a solution called Shopping Enhancer. Karl Quist, who built the service, joins Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio to explain how Shopping Enhancer will work.

Millions of basketball fans will fill out NCAA tournament brackets this week and try to correctly predict the outcomes of every game. The chances of succeeding are about 1 in 150 quintillion. A group of computer scientists are trying to beat those odds by writing programs that learn to pick winners.

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In the aftermath of the Newtown school shooting, there's a raging public debate over placing armed guards in schools. Some say it's impractical, but about a third of American schools already have some kind of armed security. One school police officer in Stockton, Calif., finds the job is part protector, part mentor.

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In the aftermath of the Newtown school shooting, there's a raging public debate over placing armed guards in schools. Some say it's impractical, but about a third of American schools already have some kind of armed security. One school police officer in Stockton, Calif., finds the job is part protector, part mentor.

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Health insurers are obligated to cover pumps to help moms breast-feed. But there is a variety of equipment. Some nursing mothers prefer faster, electric models that cost more. Insurers may say a less expensive manual pump would do just fine.

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According to Pentagon research, a quarter of all women who join the military are sexually assaulted during their careers. Many cases go unreported, and some victims say the perpetrator is a superior to whom they would have to report the assault.

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According to Pentagon research, a quarter of all women who join the military are sexually assaulted during their careers. Many cases go unreported, and some victims say the perpetrator is a superior to whom they would have to report the assault.

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Housing season seems to have arrived early in some places where homebuying is already frenzied, and in many markets, the pendulum has swung from an excess of homes on the market a few years ago to a shortage.

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Older Americans and younger boomers may find themselves bombarded with ads for annuities. Annuities are a $200-billion-a-year business for life insurance companies and financial institutions. Kiplinger's Kimberly Lankford explains some of the choices and red flags facing potential investors.

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Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford advanced Tuesday to a runoff in the Republican contest for an open congressional seat. It's a step toward reviving a political career that was derailed by an extramarital affair while he was governor.

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Sports commentator Frank Deford wants to know: When did we stop arguing about sports in the time-honored bar-stool fashion?

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The owners have not voted, however, on prohibiting crown hits by ball carriers outside the tackle box.

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On the political far left and right, some believe that large banks still pose a threat to taxpayers. These banks are so big, they argue, that the government will step in with support if needed. Still, the more mainstream view in Washington is that the Dodd-Frank reforms are sufficient to handle the problem.

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Bosco Ntaganda showed up unexpectedly at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali. While officials puzzle out the details of transporting him to his new detention cell in The Hague, others are wondering if his former cohorts — still pillaging Eastern Congo — might use the arrest to broker their own impunity.

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As the Republican National Committee offers criticism and advice for the party after its performance in 2012, a political science professor has come up with a list of sometimes similar GOP outreach efforts of old.

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Last summer's drought that continued through the winter wasn't just bad news for ranchers and farmers. There were big worries about what it would mean to the Mississippi River, too.

Low water and heavy boats meant bad news for barge operators who relied on high water levels to ferry goods from North to South.

"After the past couple of years we've had, I think we're enjoying the average water levels now," said Austin Golding, who has been running river barges his whole life out of Vicksburg, Miss. "I think you're going to see this have a very positive effect on the cost of goods that move across the country."

Golding said he and other barge pilots have weathered through drought and floods for the past few years. No matter what the weather, "we have to maintain business as usual."

The New York Post, with its brazen and sometimes hilarious, sometimes cruel and punishing headlines, is now promoting itself with a bus tour of Manhattan. It drives by spots where reporters covered the scandals, murders and sensations that make New York City such a competitive tabloid town.

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Rebates on healthy foods purchases can influence what put in their grocery carts, a study found. People spent 9 percent more on fruits, vegetables, non-fat dairy and other healthful foods when they got a 25 percent rebate on them.

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