Military Spouses Job Program in Jeopardy

[deadparrot]

WASHINGTON - When her husband's Air Force job took him to Colorado, Vydia Torres became a cashier just so she could join him even though her resume included stints as Puerto Rico's housing secretary and the head of a nonprofit group.

"I did not have the network. I did not know the labor market," Torres says of her move in 1993. Military spouses face similar career dilemmas, she said, because they relocate so much.

Today, Torres heads a Colorado Springs, Colo., program — also in place in a half-dozen communities nationwide — that helps military spouses with job training, placement, tuition and child care.

Despite its popularity, the initiative is in jeopardy because government officials do not intend to renew its federal grant.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060430/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_spouses_jobs

[PaganPreacher]

1. "Jeopardy" is such a harsh word!

It looks like Nancy Zuckerbrod is trying to create a frenzy where there is none.

From the bottom half of the article:

Mason Bishop, the Labor Department's deputy assistant secretary for employment and training, said Friday the department has told program administrators the grant money no longer will be available because it comes from a pool of money meant for emergencies.

Bishop said his agency sends billions of dollars annually to states to help workers find jobs and learn new skills. He said some of this money could pay for the program for military spouses. "I absolutely believe these projects can continue on indefinitely," Bishop said.

I guess we can stop hyperventilating. Good thing, since I was getting lightheaded.


The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[Solo_in_MD]

2. Three main jobs for military wives

outside the home have traditionally been (in no particular order):

Nursing
Teaching/Education
Hair Dresser

Those are some of the most portable jobs in our society and in high demand. Where I grew up the local hospitals and schools counted on military wives coming through. They brought a lot of experience and had negligible seniority at with the local employers so were paid less.

Can't speak to the cosmetology side, though in the late sixties in Hawaii, a major complaint of military wives was that the local hairdressers did not know how to work on African hair.

[MADem]

4. Where did you get that statistic?

I've known plenty of DoDDS teachers, but most weren't 'wives.' A few, sure, but often they met their husbands while already teaching at overseas schools. Most military nurses I've known were active duty; more than a few weren't wives, but husbands. The dependent nurses were a distinct minority.

I've known spouses, male and female, who had all sorts of jobs, from government to private sector, everything from real estate agents to clerical workers to accountants, and on and on. I don't think they have a lock on those three skillsets, at least not for the last several decades.

This program that the Monkey is cutting will probably shove them back into the fast food worker/childcare worker/check out clerk mode, though...

[Solo_in_MD]

6. From the military spouses class when I was uniform

Bear in mind that the most prevalent job could be as little as 10% overall given the number of choices out there. My wife taught while I was in uniform (and still does).

My personal experience bears out the local economies counting on the military spouses to bring good skills to job for cheap, be it the OR or Wal-Mart.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, been hearing a number of spouses are working there as a means to have a "portable" job when they rotate.

[MADem]

3. Under Clinton, that money did NOT come from a pool of money meant

for emergencies, it was folded into the Family Services/Support budgets.

It wasn't a lot of dough, either, but it was helpful, especially for highly mobile active duty servicemembers, who did a lot of deployments and overseas tours.

The Monkey is already trying to screw with the rights and benefits of the career DOD workforce; so this is just one more way of saying "Fuck the Troops."

For personnel with a few kids, living on E-6 pay, that extra paycheck is important to them. And help getting into the local labor market stateside, or having a shot at employment on base in an overseas environment, is a real quality of life enhancer. It also helped the spouse maintain a career path despite moving every three or so years.

Way ta go, BushCo!

[HuffleClaw]

5. i thought they liked the military !

they've done so much to screw with them its just not funny. but when it comes time to ask congress for money to pay for their goddamned WAR, any democrat who dares question the ludicrous expense is immediately called a TRAITOR.

[Blaq Dem]

7. Well, the wives won't have enough to buy a flag

How patriotic.