Abstract
This article reports employee perceptions of several dimensions of veterans' preference legislation in one southern state. Two groups of subjects were used: a small random sample of state employees and a group of personnel professionals. One purpose was to determine if attitudes toward veterans' preference are different between personnel professionals — individuals who daily work with and view the impact of such legislation, and a random sample of state employees — who sometimes benefit and/or are disadvantaged by such legislation. Secondly, since women have traditionally been negatively affected by systems of veterans' preference, the data was analysed by gender to determine male/female differences in perception. Results indicate that veterans preference legislation is not a very popular concept in the state surveyed. Personnel professionals attitudes were more negative than those of the state employees; however, neither group voiced high levels of support. Few gender related differences were discovered, contrary to original expectations. Finally, some policy suggestions are raised regarding the equity of such legislation given the changing nature of the contemporary workforce. The potential of the “readjustment” theory of veterans' preference legislation is also discussed.
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