How Our Service Scholarship Helped a Military Spouse Escape the Underemployment Trap

Striking a healthy balance between your professional life and personal life is a challenge for anyone, but the value of achieving this—for your work success, relationships, and general well-being—has never been clearer and more emphasized than now. For the military spouse—the husband or wife who must align themselves with a partner whose career means frequent relocations or solo deployments—the challenge of laying the foundations of a fulfilling career trajectory is even greater. Initiatives such as the Adecco Group US Foundation’s Military Alliance program scholarship can help ensure military spouses don’t sacrifice their own career paths so their spouses can serve. When Michelle Arteche first met her husband, Markus, he had just returned from an arduous deployment in Afghanistan and was visiting his family in Central Florida. Markus, a U.S. Army soldier, quickly fell in love with Michelle. Once married, they moved to Hawaii, where Markus was stationed. It all sounds idyllic—but for a military spouse, a life of following the sometimes frequent and unpredictable geographical shifts of your partner’s career can make it difficult to pursue a professional life of your own. Michelle soon experienced the professional challenges inherent in becoming a military spouse. “I really felt like a second-class citizen who was expected to put my husband’s career first,” Michelle recalls. “I was underpaid, and hiring managers were not taking my full skillset into account.”

The military spouse underemployment trap

It’s a common struggle—let’s call it the Military Spouse Underemployment Trap. A White House report calculated military spouses earn 26.8% less than their non-military peers and their unemployment rate hovers at 24%. This disparity amounts to $190,000 in lost wages for a family over the course of a typical 20-year military career. Michelle recalls that everywhere she went, “every military spouse I talked to had the same thing at the top of their mind—finding a good job.” Why such a wage discrepancy? Experts cite the constant relocations required of service members’ families, which inflict on spouses multiple forced career restarts, lost promotions, résumé discontinuity, and having to constantly re-establish a local professional network—every one to three years. It makes it enormously difficult to build relationships, develop a reputation, complete education and training, and gain or build on experience—all while balancing, as in Michelle’s case, raising two children and supporting her partner.

Beating the odds: The Adecco Group US Foundation’s Service Scholarship

But Michelle’s story is one of beating the odds. After leaving Hawaii, she pursued a master’s degree while working contract jobs. Scouring LinkedIn one day, she came across the Adecco Group US Foundation’s Service Scholarship for military spouses. The scholarship offered free courses in data analytics, digital marketing and/or product management through the Adecco Group’s partnership with General Assembly (GA), an Adecco Group brand who is a pioneer in education and career transformation. Michelle applied for and received the scholarship, deciding then to enroll in the part-time digital marketing course. She excelled in the program and used skills she learned to professionalize her employer’s web presence by updating their meta tags, which are content descriptors that tell search engines what a web page is all about. The next month, her employer’s site experienced a 312% increase in website visits. “The scholarship and course gave me a strong competitive edge,” Michelle says. And the payoffs have been enormous: Michelle leveraged her new skills to seek a higher-paying job and after two significant offers, she accepted a position paying $55,000 more than her pre-scholarship position.

A work/life balance success story

Career fulfilment is, of course, is often based on a good paycheck. The ways in which you can nurture the other areas of your life while also dedicating yourself to your work are key to avoiding burnout and other health risks. In Michelle’s current job, her company also accommodates her family’s lifestyle. She enjoys working remotely, with the flexibility to care for her children, one of whom has special needs. “So much has changed because I found meaningful work,” Michelle says, “and I would not be in this position without the GA course. I know my worth and want to be seen the way I see myself. I am also helping other military spouses be seen.”

Adecco marks 20 years of supporting military spouses

The Adecco Group is a leader in addressing our nation’s high military spouse unemployment rate. We are proud to be recognized as a military spouse-friendly employer and to offer spouses portable careers, online training, and professional support. In 2021, the Adecco Group US Foundation gifted $20,000 of technology education scholarships, in partnership with General Assembly, to women veterans and military spouses who were disproportionally impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This year marks the Adecco Group Military Alliance program’s 20th anniversary of actively supporting the U.S. military community through employment and education opportunities. To date, the Adecco Group has employed over 100,000 military spouses and veterans. We believe it is important to honor not only those who proudly serve in the U.S. military, but also their families and partners who commit alongside them to the serve where they are needed. By supporting means for employment and education to military spouses who sacrifice the choice to remain in one place for an indefinite time to satisfy their own professional ambitions, we can safeguard against the costs of this commitment including missed opportunities for fulfilling career growth for people like Michelle who want to develop and contribute their talents.