Veteran Employment Business Survey

This Executive Summary report details the findings of a business survey of the KIX Region examining the attitudes, perceptions, and practices of local businesses with regards to the employment of military veterans. The KIX region consists of the Lincoln Trail Workforce Investment Area (WIA), KentuckianaWorks Workforce Investment Area and three counties of the Lake Cumberland Workforce Investment Area  (Adair, Green and Taylor). The military veteran questions examined in this report were asked as part of a larger region-­‐wide business survey that took place August 2013 through January 2013.

Key findings included:

• Overall, employers indicated a general willingness to consider hiring qualified candidates who were military veterans, were aware of the number of veterans in their company, and attempted to translate military background and experience into terms that could be applied to the company's needs
• There was not a general trend of specific programs for hiring military veterans and little interest in participation in a region-wide initiative around hiring military veterans.
• Very few businesses reported that they worked with any of a list of Veteran Organizations. When they did report working with an organization, the most commonly reported were the Office of Employment and Training and Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs.
• The Transportation/Utilities and Business Services industries seemed to be the most "military veteran friendly," at least with regard to the questions asked in the survey. Other veteran friendly industries included Manufacturing and Wholesale
• The Education, Retail, and Finance industries did not tend to have businesses that were military veteran friendly relative to other industries.
• Larger businesses tended to be more likely to respond favorably to the military veteran survey questions

You can download the report's Executive Summary here.