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Lynette Pharr-Ellis lived in Hawaii while her Army husband was stationed there, but it was far from paradise.
She couldn’t find a job because of her husband’s career.
“I was overlooked for jobs because I was told I wouldn’t stay long enough,” said Pharr-Ellis, whose husband has been at Fort Carson since 2001. “I finally got a job, but right when I did, we got orders to (move out).”
Employment and deployment don’t always go hand-in-hand for military spouses.
Frequent moves or the possibility of a member of the military being shipped out unexpectedly pose huge challenges for job-seeking military spouses
that civilian spouses don’t face — especially in Colorado Springs, home to five military installations and thousands of military spouses.
Nationwide, the problem potentially affects a majority of military spouses: six out of 10 have jobs outside the home, and as many as one-third move each year, according to a recent study by the National Military Family Association, an advocacy group.
“Whenever a job comes up, you take what you can get and then when something else better comes along you jump on it,” said Lacy Eldard, a USAA Insurance employee and wife of a Peterson Air Force Base airman. “But it looked like I wasn’t a stable employee.”
As a licensed practical nurse, Michelle Owens works in a job that’s in demand. But she’s moved four times in the past five years because of her husband’s Army career. Each move to a new state required her to be recertified, which can delay her ability to get a job by six months.
Once certified, she’s rarely in a town long enough to work up the ranks or even qualify for retirement benefits. Her supervisors usually have far less job experience than she, Owens said.
“It’s because they’ve been able to stay there, they get a supervisor’s position over me,” Owens
said. “It’s frustrating.”
Deployments hamper employment because spouses often stay at home to raise families. An average military household has 3.7 people, and many local combat units have been deployed every other year.
When Pharr-Ellis came to Colorado Springs, she found a full-time job but quit after six months to care for her children while her husband was deployed or on training exercises.
Other spouses often move back to stay with family members, who help out with kids while the spouse works. In Owens’ case, she temporarily moved to Ohio while her husband was in South Korea and Iraq.
But local help is available.
Fort Carson offers job-placement assistance programs, including free child care for military spouses, and provides classes to spouses to update their job skills.
Meanwhile, the Pikes Peak Workforce Center has a program that helps military spouses’ with job applications, resume writing, interview skills and teaches them about the local job market.
Some employers, however, say hiring military spouses poses no greater problem; in fact, their skills can be a benefit.
Lynn Guillory, vice president of human resources with Foxworth-Galbraith Lumber, which has three operations in the Springs, said there’s no guarantee nonmilitary hirees will remain with a company.
“Today, you don’t see people staying with companies like they once did,” he said. “If a person moved from company to company for good reason they can be just as attractive, especially if the reason is that they were moving because of the military.”
San Antonio-based USAA Insurance considers a military connection a plus, not a drawback, when it hires people for its Springs regional office. USAA serves members of the military and their families.
“We like people who have exposure to culture in the armed forces and understand where our clients are coming from,” said spokesman John Henry. “It adds to their credibility as far as their ability to deal with USAA customers.”