Military Spouse Unemployment: Perspective of Marine Corps Spouses on Hiring Best Practices
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With a Permanent Change of Station every 2 to 3 years, military spouse unemployment has been an issue affecting military families for many years. With an average unemployment rate of 22%, it has gathered the attention of the Department of Defense and many organizations that are trying to close the unemployment gap for military spouses. Finding and retaining employment for the military spouse has been found to directly affect the retention of service members, particularly of those stationed in a location where job conditions are not favorable. Marine Corps spouses face different challenges because of the location of their duty stations. Bases, such as Camp Lejeune, have a negative net job availability, which makes it difficult to find employment. This qualitative phenomenological study researched hiring best practices from the perspective of active duty Marine Corps spouses. This study is based on the theoretical accountability framework of the chaos theory of careers. The methodology is based on semistructured interviews with active duty Marine Corps spouses who were employed at the time of the interview. The results of this study may convince employers to utilize some of the best practices experience by Marine Corps spouses at the time of hiring.