DC Insights: How Veteran Representation and Hiring Vary by Organization Size

July 9, 2026

Overview

How much does organization size influence veteran representation and hiring? According to 2025 VETS-4212 reports submitted by federal contractors, organization size does matter, but mostly at the extremes.

Employers with fewer than 100 employees reported substantially higher veteran representation and hiring rates than larger employers. Beyond the two smallest employer-size tiers, however, veteran representation was relatively consistent, generally ranging from 3% to 4%. Veteran hiring rates showed a similar pattern, although with somewhat greater variation among larger employers.

These findings reinforce an important principle of workforce benchmarking: meaningful comparisons require meaningful peer groups. Organization size can influence workforce outcomes, but so can industry, occupational mix, geography, and employer-specific recruiting and retention practices. Comparing a 5,000-employee organization to a 50,000-employee organization – or a healthcare system to a manufacturer – can produce misleading conclusions, even when both operate under the same federal compliance requirements.

This inaugural edition of DC Insights examines veteran representation and hiring by organization size. Future editions will explore how these measures vary by industry, EEO-1 job category, and individual employer.

Key Insights

The smallest employers stand apart.

Employers with fewer than 100 employees reported an overall veteran representation rate of 9.82%, compared with rates ranging from 3.38% to 3.75% among employers with more than 1,000 employees. While employer size appears to influence outcomes, the most pronounced difference is between the smallest employers and all others.

Veteran hiring rates generally decline as employer size increases.

Veterans accounted for 11.23% of hires among employers with fewer than 100 employees and 7.15% among employers with 100 to 500 employees, substantially higher than the rates reported by larger employers. Among employers with more than 500 employees, veteran hiring generally ranged between 3% and 5%, with the notable exception of the largest employers, where veterans accounted for just 1.90% of hires. For comparison, the OFCCP veteran hiring benchmark in effect for most of 2025 was 5.2%.

Hiring and representation rates can tell different stories.

Representation reflects the cumulative effects of hiring, promotion, and turnover, while hiring rates reflect only 12 months of talent acquisition activity. Among employers with more than 50,000 employees, the overall veteran representation rate was 3.42%, but the veteran hire rate was just 1.90%. By contrast, employers with 5,001 to 10,000 employees reported an overall veteran representation rate of 3.75% and a veteran hiring rate of 4.13%.

Differences by EEO-1 job category often exceed differences by employer size.

Across larger employers (10,001 employees plus), veteran representation ranged from 6.82% to 9.51% in Craft Worker positions but only 1.55% to 2.02% among Administrative Support Workers, Sales Workers, and Laborers. These findings suggest that employers comparing overall veteran representation and hiring results should also consider occupational mix, since employers with very different EEO-1 workforce distributions may not be truly comparable, even within the same industry.

Veteran hiring rates among Craft Workers exceed those of most other job categories.

Across nearly every employer size category, Craft Workers reported the strongest veteran hiring outcomes. Veterans accounted for 5.33% of Craft Worker hires among employers with 10,001 to 50,000 employees and 10.19% among employers with more than 50,000 employees.

Why This Matters

These findings illustrate why employers should be cautious about relying on a single benchmark for veteran representation or hiring.

Employer size explains some of the variation in workforce outcomes, particularly among the smallest employers. Beyond that, differences in industry, EEO-1 job category, geography, and employer-specific talent management strategies likely account for much of the remaining variation.

Effective benchmarking begins with selecting the right comparison group. An employer with 20,000 employees should not expect to resemble one with 75 employees, but neither should manufacturers, healthcare systems, universities, technology companies, and retailers expect identical workforce demographics simply because they employ similar numbers of people.

The Employer VETS-4212 Demographics section of the CWC Data Center allows subscribers to benchmark against employers with similar workforce characteristics, including employer size, industry, job category, and even specific organizations.

Looking Ahead

This analysis examined only one dimension of workforce benchmarking: organization size.

Future editions of DC Insights will explore questions such as:

• Which industries employ the highest percentages of veterans?
• Which EEO-1 job categories consistently outperform others?
• How much do veteran outcomes vary among employers of similar size within the same industry?
• Which employers consistently exceed industry norms?

Perhaps most interesting, analyses at the individual employer level reveal that veteran representation and hiring rates often vary dramatically, even among organizations of similar size operating within the same industry. Understanding why some employers consistently outperform their peers may offer the most valuable insights of all.

About the CWC Data Center

The CWC Data Center is a subscription-based research and benchmarking platform that provides workforce demographic and workplace compliance data to help employers make more informed decisions.

Current datasets include:

• Graduate Demographics
• Labor Market Demographics
• Employer EEO-1 Demographics
• Employer VETS-4212 Demographics
• State Standards

New datasets, analytical tools, and benchmarking capabilities continue to be added as the platform grows.

One More Insight . . .

The most important lesson from this analysis may not be that organization size influences veteran employment, it’s that organization size explains only part of the story.

Within the same industry, organizations of comparable size often report dramatically different veteran representation and hiring rates. Those differences suggest that organizational strategy, recruiting practices, retention efforts, and workforce composition may have as much influence as employer size itself.

Future editions of DC Insights will examine what distinguishes these organizations and what their peers can learn from them.

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