The VA became the latest employer to join a new program designed to boost military spouse hiring – and the department has a lot of room to grow.

Of the VA’s 50,240 new hires in FY 2021 – the last year for which figures are immediately available – just 68, or 0.13%, were military spouses. That’s down from 0.22% the previous year and falls well behind the FY 2021 DoD total (2.71%) and that year’s executive branch agency average (0.90%).

[RELATED: Ask Your Lawmakers to Support the READINESS Act]

Part of the department’s work to improve this figure includes participating in the 4+1 Commitment, a program led by Blue Star Families and Hiring Our Heroes where participating employers commit to at least one of the following ways to help military spouses:

• Facilitate job transferability
• Offer remote or telework
• Offer flexible work hours
• Provide paid PCS leave

Participants also would consider joining an existing government spouse employment program – the “+1” part of the program. The VA has been part of one of those programs, the Military Spouse Employment Partnership, since 2019.

“To build the strongest possible workforce to serve our nation’s heroes, we need to hire and support military spouses – many of whom are Veterans themselves,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough said in a March 6 news release announcing the department’s participation in the program. “We at VA are proud to make these commitments and support our nation’s military spouses every way we can.”

[FREE DOWNLOAD: MOAA's Military Spouse Employment Guide]

MOAA will continue its work in support of the 4+1 Commitment while urging strong action from Congress to increase military spouse employment opportunities across the federal spectrum, not just the VA. A recent MOAA.org article highlighted significant concerns with the first-ever federal strategic plan addressing barriers to spouse, caregiver, and survivor employment, and ongoing efforts to address the problem via legislation include support of the bipartisan READINESS Act, which would allow federally employed spouses facing a PCS move to:

• Seek an individual determination from their employer about whether their job can be done remotely (on a temporary basis) or be relocated.
• Obtain a determination on a transfer to a similar position, if the above options aren’t available.
• Move into non-pay status, which would let the employee retain nonmonetary benefits, such as a security clearance.

Learn more about other MOAA legislative efforts on this and other topics at MOAA’s Legislative Action Center.