Jenny Lynne Stroup had a plan. She grew up in Suffolk and was going to be a fourth grade teacher.
“That was going to be my career,” she said. “I would retire from the school system, and that was going to be the life that I led.”
Things didn’t turn out that way. She met her husband during her first year of teaching, got married and became a military spouse.
She stopped teaching three years later to care for their kids while her husband did back-to-back deployments. Only 25 days after he got back from the second one, the family moved to New York City.
“Getting my teaching license in the state was prohibitively difficult, as was the cost of childcare,” she said. “Teaching wasn't on the table.”
Other military families across Hampton Roads would likely relate.
Unemployment for military spouses has hovered around 20% for decades. And more than 70% of military spouses reported being underemployed in 2025 — or in positions that don’t match their credentials. Military spouse employment was the top concern for military families in 2025, according to Blue Star Families.
Frequent moves, different licensing requirements across states and childcare costs all contribute. When a spouse can’t find or keep work, it impacts a family’s financial stability and can contribute to already high levels of food insecurity among enlisted military service members.
It also impacts the wider economy, said Melissa Sanderson, who leads efforts around military spouse programs for Hiring Our Heroes, an organization that helps the military community find job opportunities.
“When spouses are unemployed or underemployed, we're talking about lost productivity, lost tax revenue and missed opportunities, quite frankly, for businesses that are desperate for the talent,” she said.
Stroup is now director of military spouse hiring at Hiring Our Heroes. The organization is hosting a professional development workshop — a program called Amplify — April 28 at The Hive in Virginia Beach and a hiring event April 29 at the Westin near Town Center.
The workshops Tuesday will include resume reviews and building skills such as public speaking, salary negotiation, networking and interviewing.
Tricia Storey is a speech therapist and military spouse in Hampton Roads. After not working for almost a decade, she said Amplify events with Hiring Our Heroes helped.
“Even having the gap on my resume was a challenge,” she said. “They have people that review your resume and they help you with the wording and how you can justify those kinds of gaps, and what you did in that period of time.”
More than 20 employers will be at the hiring event Wednesday, including USAA, Cox Communications, Maxim Healthcare and the cities of Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Sanderson said.
The hiring event is open to veterans, transitioning service members, military spouses, military caregivers and working-age military dependent children.
Sanderson said the organization works with employers to not only hire military spouses but also retain them by allowing remote work and flexible career pathways.
Event details
- Hampton Roads Amplify | The Hive in Virginia Beach | April 28 (9 a.m. – 4 p.m.)
- Hampton Roads Military Spouse Hiring Event | The Westin Virginia Beach Town Center | April 29 (10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.)
Registration Link: www.HiringOurHeroes.org/norfolk-milspouse
