Before you build a veteran hiring plan, you need a number. How many veterans actually live and work near you? Most employers skip this step. They set a goal like "hire five veterans this year" with no idea if the local pool can support it. Then they miss the target and blame the program.

The fix is simple. Size the pool first. The data is public, free, and more detailed than most hiring teams realize. The federal government tracks veterans down to the county level. You can pull a real estimate for your area in under an hour.

This guide walks you through it. We will cover the data sources that matter, a simple way to estimate your working-age veteran pool, and how to turn that number into a hiring target you can actually hit. No guesswork. Just real figures you can defend to your leadership.

Why Does Sizing Your Local Veteran Pool Matter?

A hiring target with no pool estimate is a guess. And guesses fail in predictable ways. You either set the bar too high and miss, or set it too low and leave good candidates on the table.

Veterans are not spread evenly across the country. Some metros have huge veteran populations. Others have very few. A plan that works in Norfolk will not work the same way in Burlington. The local number is what makes your plan real.

There is good news in the raw count. In 2024, there were 17.6 million veterans in the United States, about 7 percent of the adult civilian population. Their unemployment rate was 3.0 percent, lower than the 3.9 percent rate for nonveterans. So the pool is large, and a big share of it is already working. That second part matters more than most teams expect, and we will come back to it.

Sizing the pool also protects your budget. When you walk into a planning meeting with a defensible local number, you can ask for the right resources. You can say "there are roughly this many working-age veterans within 30 miles, so a target of X is realistic." That holds up. "We should hire more veterans" does not.

What Public Data Sources Tell You About Veterans Near You?

You do not need to buy a data product. Three federal sources cover almost everything you need. Each one answers a different question. Use them together.

The Census Bureau (American Community Survey)

The Census Bureau is your best tool for local counts. The American Community Survey runs every year. It includes a table built just for this. The table is called S2101, Veteran Status.

S2101 gives you the number of veterans by geography. You can pull it for a state, a county, a metro area, or even a city. It also breaks veterans out by age, sex, and labor force status. That last part is gold. You are not just getting a raw count. You are getting how many veterans are in the labor force right where you hire.

Start at the Census Bureau veterans data tools. Search the S2101 table for your county or metro. The data is free to view and download as a spreadsheet.

The VA (National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics)

The VA runs its own population model. It is called VetPop. The VA's analysis center publishes county and state veteran population estimates and projections. It also has maps that shade each county by how many veterans live there.

The VA data is useful for a fast visual read. You can glance at a map and see which counties around you hold the most veterans. Use the VA veteran population estimates to confirm what the Census numbers tell you. When two federal sources roughly agree, your number is solid.

The BLS (Employment Situation of Veterans)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks veteran employment, not headcount by city. Its yearly Employment Situation of Veterans report tells you the national picture. Unemployment rate. Labor force participation. Age breakdowns. Period of service.

You use BLS data to apply ratios, not to find your local total. For example, the national veteran unemployment rate tells you roughly what share of local veterans are looking for work right now. We will use that in the estimate below.

How Do You Estimate Your Working-Age Veteran Pool?

A raw veteran count is the wrong number to plan on. It includes retirees in their 80s. It includes people far outside your commute zone. You want a tighter figure. You want working-age veterans who could realistically take a job with you.

Here is a simple method. Walk through it with your own local numbers. The figures below are made up to show the math. Do not treat them as facts about any real city. Pull your own.

Step 1: Get the total local veteran count

Pull S2101 for your county or metro. Say it shows 40,000 veterans. That is your starting number. If you hire across several counties, add them up.

Step 2: Narrow to working age

Not every veteran is in the job market. Many are retired. The S2101 table breaks veterans out by age. You can also apply a national pattern. A large share of the veteran population is over 55. Filter down to the 18 to 54 group, since that is where most active job seekers sit.

Say working-age veterans are 45 percent of your local total. That takes 40,000 down to 18,000. This is illustrative. Your real share will differ, so use the age columns in S2101.

Step 3: Apply labor force participation

Not every working-age veteran wants a job right now. Some are in school on the GI Bill. Some are caregivers. The S2101 table shows how many local veterans are in the labor force. If it is not handy, the BLS report gives you a national rate to apply.

Say 75 percent are in the labor force. That takes 18,000 down to 13,500 active or available workers. Again, this is the method, not a claim about your town.

Step 4: Find the ones open to a move

Most of those 13,500 already have jobs. That is the point we flagged earlier. Veteran unemployment is low, around 3 percent nationally. So your "actively unemployed and searching" pool is small. But that is not your real recruiting pool.

Your real pool is bigger. It includes employed veterans who would move for the right offer. In any workforce, a meaningful share is open to a better job. So do not anchor on the 3 percent. Plan to reach the much larger group of working veterans who are quietly open to a change.

How Do Nearby Bases Change Your Local Number?

The Census count tells you who lives near you today. It does not tell you who is about to enter the job market. For that, look at the military bases in your region.

Every base separates service members on a steady schedule. People leave the military every month, year-round. Many of them stay in the area where they were last stationed. They already have housing, schools, and a network there. That means a base near you is a fresh supply line of new veterans.

If you are within driving distance of a large installation, your effective pool is bigger than the Census number alone. You also get a timing advantage. These are people planning their exit months ahead. Many use transition programs and SkillBridge internships before their last day.

You will not find a clean "veterans separating per year near me" figure in one tidy table. But you can get close. Look up the bases in your region and their size. Reach out to the base transition offices. They work directly with service members heading to civilian jobs. We cover that channel in detail in our guide on recruiting veterans through base transition offices.

What Skills and Eras Are in Your Pool?

A pool number means little without a sense of fit. Forty thousand veterans nearby does not help if none of them match your roles. So go one layer deeper. Sort your pool by skill and era.

Start with the bases and units in your region. A region near a logistics-heavy installation will hold more supply chain and transportation veterans. A region near a cyber or intelligence command will hold more IT and cleared talent. The local mix follows the local military mission.

Era matters too. The S2101 table and BLS reports split veterans by period of service. Post-9/11 veterans skew younger and are more likely to be in the job market. Older-era veterans may be settled or retired. If you want candidates with recent, active careers ahead of them, the post-9/11 group is where to focus.

This is also where a candidate platform beats raw Census data. Census tells you how many veterans live nearby. It cannot tell you which ones are engineers, which hold a clearance, or which are job-hunting this month. That detail is what turns a market-size number into an actual hire. For where to take your open roles once you know the mix, see our guide on where to post jobs to reach veteran candidates.

How Do You Turn the Pool Number Into a Hiring Target?

You have a working-age veteran pool number. Now make it a plan. A pool is not a target. A target is what you commit to and measure against. The pool sets the ceiling. Your funnel sets the realistic floor.

Work backward from your need. Say you want to fill 4 roles with veterans this year. Not every veteran you reach will apply. Not every applicant will be a fit. Not every offer will be accepted. So you need a pool many times larger than your target.

If your local working-age veteran pool is in the thousands, a target of a handful of hires is very reachable. If your pool is in the low hundreds, you set a smaller target and lean harder on nearby bases and broader sourcing. The pool number is what tells you which situation you are in.

Once you have your pool number, the next step is setting the target itself. We break down the full method, including funnel ratios and how to defend the goal to leadership, in our guide on setting realistic veteran hiring targets for your team. Pair that with a broader plan using our veteran recruiting strategy playbook.

If you need to sell the plan internally first, our guide on making the internal business case for veteran hiring and the breakdown of the ROI of hiring veterans give you the numbers to back it up. And if your region is light on local supply, in-person events can extend your reach, which we cover in our guide on sourcing veterans at military job fairs.

Where a Veteran Talent Platform Fits

Public data sizes the market. It does not put a name and a resume in front of you. That is the gap. You can know there are 13,500 working-age veterans nearby and still not be able to reach one of them on a deadline.

That is where BMR comes in. We hold a large, active pool of veteran candidates with built resumes. Over 1,000 new veteran profiles are added every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. These are veterans who are organized, job-ready, and reachable now.

So you can use the Census to size your local market, then come to us to actually hire from it. The market-size number proves the opportunity is real. The platform turns it into candidates you can interview this quarter.

Size the Pool, Then Build the Plan

Most veteran hiring plans skip the first step. They set a goal before they know the market. Then the goal floats free of reality, and the program stalls.

You now have a better path. Pull the Census S2101 table for your county. Confirm it against the VA maps. Apply age and labor force filters to get a working-age pool. Add the steady flow from any nearby base. Sort by the skills and eras your roles need.

That gives you a number you can defend. Not a vague wish to "hire more veterans," but a real estimate of how many live and work within reach. From there, the rest of the plan gets easier. You set a target the pool can support. You point your sourcing at the right channels. And you stop guessing.

The data is free and public. The veterans are there. The only question left is whether your plan is built on a real number or a hope. Start with the number.