North Carolina Private Employer Veterans Preference

General Statute 95-28.4 does something narrow but genuinely useful: "A private, nonpublic employer in the State may provide a preference to a veteran for employment. Spouses of honorably discharged veterans who have a service-connected permanent and total disability also may be preferred for employment. Granting of this preference is not a violation of any State or local equal employment opportunity law." The reason this matters is that a private employer who wants to hire veterans can otherwise face a real question about whether a stated preference exposes them to a discrimination claim. The statute removes the doubt, which converts a vague goodwill toward veterans into a policy a company's lawyers will sign off on. The statute speaks of preference "for employment"; it does not mention promotion, so an employer relying on it for promotions is outside its words. The provision also covers the spouse of an honorably discharged veteran with a service-connected permanent and total disability. A spouse in that position has usually had their own career disrupted by caregiving, and this lets an employer take that into account deliberately. What this is not is an entitlement. No private employer is required to prefer a veteran, and a veteran cannot demand the preference or sue for its absence. The benefit to a job seeker is indirect: it is worth asking an employer whether they operate a veterans preference under this statute, because many that would like to do not know they may. There is no disability rating test for the veteran's own preference. The spouse path uses the total and permanent standard, which is a VA determination rather than a bare combined rating.