Resources for military spouses on Military Spouse Appreciation Day

LTC Shaun and Beth Conlin at the Wounded Warrior Reception, 2019. Beth is the Senior Program Manager for Military Spouse Programs at Amazon.

On Military Spouse Appreciation Day, we want to acknowledge the significant contributions, support, and sacrifices of military spouses worldwide. We are grateful for your service and sacrifices.

For military spouses, finding employment can be a challenge. According to the 2019 Blue Star Families Military Lifestyle Survey of service members, military spouses, and veterans, the #1 ranked issue for spouses is employment (48%). Additionally, 24% of spouses are unemployed and 77% of those employed are underemployed—receiving pay lower than education level and prior work experiences, which can exacerbate financial concerns for families.

Flexible roles (e.g., flexible scheduling, remote/telework) like those in technology are a viable option for military spouses. To help prepare military spouses for roles in technology, Amazon offers no cost training for US military spouses, transitioning military, and veterans through its AWS Educate initiative.

AWS Educate is Amazon’s grant-based, global initiative to provide the resources needed to accelerate cloud-related learning and graduate learners ready to enter a cloud-enabled workplace. AWS Educate addresses the overwhelming global need for a technically skilled workforce in one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy and provides opportunities for high-paying careers in the cloud.

AWS Educate for Veterans aims to train 10,000 active duty service members who are transitioning, military veterans, and spouses in cloud computing, offering them a path to AWS certification. Members can enjoy benefits like AWS Promotional Credit, access to the AWS Educate job board, and more. Check out AWS Educate for Veterans.

Anna Jimenez, an AWS Educate member and military spouse said, “One of my husband’s coworkers told us that Amazon supports the military and their dependents by providing free educational tools. I was very happy to find out about it and currently taking the application developer pathway on AWS Educate. I’m also planning to study for the AWS certification exam.” Read about other military spouses in last year’s blog post on Military Spouse’s Day.

Learn more about what Amazon is doing to train and hire military veterans and their spouses.