The challenges to multiple moves and resume gaps, and helpful resources for making it work
By Katie Schubert
In November, the national rate of unemployment according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics was approximately 4.1%. For military spouses, the rate is more than five times higher—at about 21%.
Military spouses face a myriad of challenges in their search for gainful employment, including frequent moves, resumé gaps, child care concerns, underemployment, lower pay and more.
Julianna Lamb has been married to her husband, who is in the Navy, for eight years. When they met, he was stationed in California, where the Navy has a large presence. In late 2022, Lamb, her husband and their two children moved to Stuttgart, Germany, for his next duty station.
Lamb, who has a master’s degree, had worked for the same independent school in California for 10 years. Upon arriving in Germany, she found her biggest hurdle to working was child care for her two children, particularly her daughter, who was only 2 when they moved overseas.
“I wanted to work full time right away because that’s who I am and I’ve raised my kids that way while doing that,” Lamb says.
While she was living in California, Lamb’s mother was only three hours away, giving her a buffer in case her children got sick while her husband was on temporary duty elsewhere or deployed. Being well established at her job also gave her the flexibility to ask for and receive leniency to take her children to a doctor’s appointment if necessary. Moving to a new area meant losing that comfort, familiarity and a proven support system.
Lamb and her husband put their daughter on the list for a space at the on-base Child Development Center in December 2022. They didn’t receive a spot until nearly a year later, in October 2023, and even then, it was only a part-time spot.
Eventually, Lamb was able to get a part-time job working as a marketing assistant for the military newspaper Stars & Stripes. The job was largely remote, allowing her more freedom to work around her children and husband’s schedules.
Lamb and her family are now in the process of moving back to the United States, where her husband will be stationed at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland for the next two years. She has decided upon returning to the states to take some time away from working. “I am kind of taking a pause, and I’m going to just get my kids set up,” she says.
“My husband will have to be away quite a bit for the first six months for some training.”
When she is ready to re-enter the workforce, Lamb says her career will have to change again. “I will have to re-establish myself at 40 years old,” she says. “What am I going to do? It’s scary. My friends who are spouses are constantly reinventing themselves.”
Hiring Resources
Kelly Grivner-Kelly knows a little something about how hard it is to find work as a military spouse. Her husband, Jon, is a veteran who served 11 years in the Air Force, separating from the military in 2023. As the program manager for Serving Spouses at the nonprofit Hire Heroes USA, Kelly Grivner-Kelly has helped thousands of spouses navigate their way through the complex job market and land gainful employment.
During her seven years with Hire Heroes USA, she has assisted scores of military spouses write resumés, provided career counseling, set up mock interviews and more while helping those who come through the program.
“I was actually a client of Hire Heroes myself…and they taught me how to job seek properly, and then I networked myself into the organization and helped start our Serving Spouses program,” Grivner-Kelly says.
In addition to having higher-than-average unemployment rates, military spouses are often under-employed and underpaid, she says. “Sometimes, they’ll take jobs just so they have jobs,” Grivner-Kelly says. “It’s not always financial. When you’re a military spouse, you’re all alone. It’s about building that community within the working environment, and it’s so important for military spouses to find work…just to create their own life and path.”
Alicia Shoulta, who works for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) as a supervisory human resources specialist, as a civilian, is also a military spouse.
“It is hard getting a job when you move so often, but there are a few things that a spouse can do to help get a job,” she says.
One hiring program to take advantage of is the Military Spouse Preference program, which gives spouses hiring preferences for certain federal positions through USAJobs.gov.
“These spouses still have to meet all of the same requirements for the job; they just get preference for hiring,” says Shoulta. “Spouses may use it to get hired once per duty station, and the preference is good for one year after they [move].”
These unemployment issues can affect more than just the spouse; they can also affect the whole family, too. “It impacts the service member as well,” Lamb says. “My husband is going to stay in and do 20, but I know several who did not stay in because their spouse wanted to have a career, too.”
Grivner-Kelly’s husband’s decision to leave the military also “had a lot to do with issues around military spouses,” she says. “Child care is very hard. Things are just so unpredictable.”
Why Hire a Military Spouse
Looking beyond child care concerns, resumé gaps and shorter timetables to stay in a position, there are plenty of reasons to hire a military spouse. “I’m a firm believer that once an employer hires a military spouse, they’re going to want to hire more,” says Grivner-Kelly. “We are built-in project managers, we don’t complain, we’re happy to be there. This is an untapped talent pool.”
Military spouses are “well-educated, highly skilled people,” Lamb says. “They have all of these skill sets that are transferable and they can’t get work, and it’s beyond frustrating.”
Shoulta agrees. “Military spouses are resilient, problem-solving and highly adaptable people; just the sort of employee you would want,” she says.
Grivner-Kelly is proud that since the Serving Spouses program began, she and her small team have helped more than 7,000 people find jobs. “Our services are always continuous,” she says. When a family moves to a new duty station, “we get our clients coming back to us.”
To find more information about Hire Heroes USA, visit their website.
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