DOD Employment Assistance Programs and Other Efforts to Help Military Spouses

Recognizing the challenges that military spouses face in beginning or  maintaining a career, DOD has historically had efforts to help military  spouses obtain employment. DOD Has Initiated Programs and Is Developing Guidance for Collaboration

Since 2009, DOD has established three programs targeted to military  spouses to help them obtain employment: (1) the Military Spouse Career  Advancement Accounts (MyCAA) tuition assistance program; (2) the  Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP), which connects military  spouses with employers; and (3) the Military Spouse Career Center,  consisting of a call center and a website through which spouses can  obtain counseling and information. DOD has two goals for its SECO programs: (1) reduce  unemployment among military spouses and (2) close their wage gap with  civilian spouses. However, DOD does not currently have guidance describing its overall  strategy and how its various programs should coordinate to help spouses  obtain employment. Develop mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results. DOD Currently Cannot Measure the Effectiveness of Its Programs, but Efforts Are Underway

DOD is not yet able to measure the overall effectiveness of its spouse  employment programs in achieving the goals of reducing unemployment  among military spouses and the wage gap with civilian spouses. To assess effectiveness of the three SECO programs, DOD is planning  on contracting with a research organization to conduct a long-term  evaluation. DOD officials would like the research organization to examine  whether the programs have affected spouses’ unemployment rates and  their wage gap with civilian spouses, as well as determine whether the  programs have had an effect on servicemembers’ retention in the military  and the families’ financial well-being. Second, DOD tracks the percentage of courses funded by MyCAA  tuition assistance that spouses complete with a passing grade. DOD’s performance monitoring is limited for several reasons. First, DOD  has no performance measures for the Career Center. Second, DOD’s  data on the MSEP program are of questionable reliability because they  derive from an informal, nonstandardized process. Finally, DOD’s performance measure for MyCAA—showing  that more than 80 percent of courses funded with MyCAA tuition  assistance were completed with passing grades in fiscal year 2011—may  be a useful interim measure for monitoring how the funds are being used. DOD recognizes the need to improve its performance monitoring for its  spouse employment programs and is taking steps to improve the data it  collects on its individual programs:
For the Career Center, DOD is planning to ask the contractor who  runs the call center to follow up with spouses who use the center’s  services and ask them about their employment situation. Two Hiring Mechanisms Can Provide Advantages to Military Spouses Seeking Federal Employment

The federal government has two hiring mechanisms targeted specifically  to military spouses seeking federal jobs. These two mechanisms can increase a military spouse’s chances of  obtaining federal employment, but they do not guarantee that spouses will  obtain the jobs they apply for. The noncompetitive authority, which became effective in late fiscal year  2009, allows any federal agency the option of hiring qualified military  spouses into the competitive service without going through the  competitive examination process. The approximately 1,200 military spouses hired in fiscal year 2011  represented about 0.5 percent of all federal hires that year. For context,  spouses of active duty servicemembers represented 0.4 percent of the  working-age population in 2010. DOD’s Military Spouse Preference (MSP) program provides military  spouses priority in selection for DOD positions. This number includes both new hires and  conversions of DOD employees. With regard to its performance monitoring, DOD has taken steps in the  right direction by exploring options to collect outcome data and planning  for a long-term evaluation. consider incorporating key attributes of successful performance  measures when developing and finalizing performance measures,  such as ensuring reliability of the data used in the measures and  covering key program activities. What efforts has DOD recently made to help military spouses prepare  for and obtain employment? What hiring mechanisms exist to help military spouses obtain federal  jobs? The information  we obtained from these installations is not generalizable. Objective 3: Identifying Federal Hiring Mechanisms

We identified the hiring mechanisms intended to help military spouses  obtain federal employment by interviewing officials at OPM and DOD and  reviewing relevant federal laws, regulations, executive orders, and  guidance. On the other hiring mechanism that we examined, the Military Spouse  Preference (MSP) program, DOD’s civilian personnel office provided us  with data on the number of spouses placed into civil service positions,  including both hires and conversions.
Why GAO Did This Study

The approximately 725,000 spouses of active duty servicemembers face challenges to maintaining a career, including having to move frequently. Their employment is often important to the financial well-being of their families. For these reasons, DOD has taken steps in recent years to help military spouses obtain employment. Moreover, the federal government has hiring mechanisms to help military spouses obtain federal jobs.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 requires GAO to report on the programs that help military spouses obtain jobs. This report examines: (1) DOD's recent efforts to help military spouses obtain employment, (2) DOD's steps to assess effectiveness of these efforts, and (3) the hiring mechanisms to help military spouses obtain federal jobs. GAO conducted interviews with DOD, the Office of Personnel Management, and two advocacy groups; conducted site visits; analyzed relevant data; and reviewed relevant documents, laws, and regulations.

What GAO Found

The Department of Defense (DOD) has recently created three new programs to help military spouses obtain employment: (1) the Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts (MyCAA) tuition assistance program, (2) the Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP), which connects military spouses with employers, (3) and the Military Spouse Career Center, consisting of a call center and a website for military spouses to obtain counseling and information. DOD's goals for these programs are to reduce unemployment among military spouses and close their wage gap with civilian spouses. Aside from these new programs, military spouses can also use employment assistance programs that the military services have long operated on DOD installations. However, GAO's site visits and interviews indicate that there may be gaps in coordination across the various programs that result in confusion for military spouses. Currently, DOD does not have guidance describing its overall strategy and how all of its programs should coordinate to help military spouses obtain employment, but DOD is in the process of developing such guidance.
DOD is not yet able to measure the overall effectiveness of its military spouse employment programs and its performance monitoring is limited, but DOD is taking steps to improve its monitoring and evaluation. To determine whether its programs have been effective in reducing unemployment among military spouses and closing their wage gap with civilian spouses, DOD is planning to contract with a research organization for a long-term evaluation. With regard to its performance monitoring for these programs, DOD has performance measures for MSEP and MyCAA, but has no measures for the Career Center. In addition, reliability of the data is questionable on the MSEP performance measure because DOD's data are derived from an informal and inconsistent process. DOD's other measure--the percentage of courses funded by MyCAA tuition assistance that military spouses complete with a passing grade--is a useful interim measure for monitoring how the funds are being used, but it does not provide information on whether the funds help military spouses obtain employment. DOD has efforts underway to improve its performance monitoring, including identifying additional measures it would like to track and collecting additional data on participants' employment and educational outcomes.
The federal government has two hiring mechanisms that can provide military spouses who meet the eligibility criteria with some advantages in the federal hiring process. The first mechanism--a non-competitive authority--allows federal agencies the option of hiring qualified military spouses without going through the competitive process. The second mechanism--DOD's Military Spouse Preference program--provides military spouses priority in selection for certain DOD jobs. These hiring mechanisms can increase a military spouse's chances of obtaining federal employment, but they do not guarantee that military spouses will obtain the job they apply for. In fiscal year 2011, agencies used the noncompetitive authority to hire about 1,200 military spouses, which represented approximately 0.5 percent of all federal hires that year. Military spouses represented 0.4 percent of the working-age population in 2010. With regard to the Military Spouse Preference program, DOD has placed about 12,500 military spouses into civil service jobs in the past 10 years, which includes both new hires and conversions of DOD employees.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that DOD consider incorporating (1) key collaboration practices as it develops its spouse employment guidance, and (2) key attributes of successful performance measures as it develops and finalizes its performance measures.