The new $1 billion Minnesota Vikings stadium is being built with a certain percentage of work supplied by minorities and women. While those requirements are set by state law, the authority building the stadium is also incorporating the work of former members of the armed services.

The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority already has contracts with five businesses owned by military veterans, said Michele Kelm-Helgen, chairwoman of the authority. The contracts represent $8.5 million of work on the project, she said.

Veteran-owned subcontractors will account for about 1 percent of the stadium's construction budget, and about 5 percent of the people working on the stadium project have been veterans, she said.

Stadium officials are hoping to combat the nationwide issue of veteran unemployment, as well as encourage other agencies and companies to do the same, Minnesota Public Radio News reported. About 9 percent of post-9/11 veterans and more than 6 percent of all veterans are unemployed across the country, according to a congressional report released last month.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation is making strides by addressing the 5 percent unemployment rate for veterans in the state, said Jerry Kyser, vice chairman of Minnesota's United Veterans Legislative Council. But more outreach is still needed, he said, to provide aid to the 66,000 Minnesota residents who have been deployed since 2011.

"Most of those are National Guard, obviously some are regular military, but they're leaving homes and their families and their businesses, to go overseas to do whatever they're going to do," he said. "And they willingly do that and they come back and they have to reintegrate."

ASSOCIATED PRESS