Delaware’s Department of Human Resources works to expand career opportunities for military spouses through the Military Spouse Transition Network.
“We find that military spouses are excellent employees - very dedicated, very skilled, very motivated - and we wanted to expand our ability to help them connect with jobs that meet their level of expertise,” said Department of Human Resources Secretary Claire DeMatteis.
The network is a partnership between the state and the National Association of State Personnel Executivesthat seeks to connect relocated military spouses to state jobs.
“We're affiliated now with military bases across the country,” explained DeMatteis. “And when a military spouse knows that they're going to be transferred, they can go right to their base personnel and, for example, say ‘I know I'm going to be transferred with my husband to Dover, can you help link me with available jobs?’. And so they will have access to be able to apply for all of the state jobs that are open.”
The program was created with the understanding that military spouses across the U.S. face unique employment hurdles.
And the First State is no exception.
“When you think about Dover Air Force Base, for example, we have families that come in and have different jobs basically almost every 3 years. Think about changing jobs every three years- that's really difficult,” said DeMatteis.
The short window of living in each state means many military spouses are forced to take entry level and lower paying jobs in order to enter the local workforce.
With this in mind the state is taking the MSTN program a step further, linking incoming military spouses with a specialized career counselor to help them find a job that meets their specific needs and responsibilities.
Delaware joins 16 other states in the Military Spouse Transition Network.
