— Domani Spero
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Last year, we posted about the family member employment in the Foreign Service (see The State of Foreign Service Family Member Employment 2013 — Where Are the Jobs?). We’ve extracted the following from State/FLO’s April 2014 (pdf) numbers and put them next to last year’s numbers. The female/male numbers for overseas family members remain at 78%/22%. Family members working inside the mission increased from 24% in 2013 to 25% in 2014. Those working outside the mission increased from 12% to 13%. Family members who are not working went from 64% in 2013 to 62% in 2014. A pretty slim change with over 7200 family members still not working either by choice or due to severely limited employment opportunities overseas. We should note that the FLO data is dated November 2013,which is after the summer transfer season and April 2014, which is before the summer rotation.
Family Member Population Overseas
Employment Status – Overseas Family Members
2014
2013
Family Member Employment Overseas – Inside the Mission
By Regional Bureau
2014
2013
SCA – where 63% of family members at post are working
The FLO employment data does not include details of full-time or part-time work or job shares, or the types of jobs inside or outside the mission. But if you want to work, the chance of getting a job is higher in the Bureau of South Central Asian Affairs (SCA) where 50% of family members are employed with the embassy and 13% are employed outside the U.S. mission. At 63%, SCA has the most number of family members working at post, however, the bureau also has the smallest number of family members located at posts. In the AF bureau, 50% of over 1500 family members at post were able to find jobs inside the mission (35%) and outside the mission (15%).
WHA/EUR – where most number of positions located
Posts in the Western Hemisphere and Europe have the most number of approved positions for overseas family members. These positions more than double the number of positions approved in each of the SCA and NEA bureaus. However, you will also note that only about 1/5 of family members in those respective bureaus (EUR-21%, WHA-22%) are able to working inside the mission in April 2014. Last year, EUR had 19% while WHA had 23% working inside the mission. This is not surprising since EUR and WHA have the most number of family members at post. The larger the family member population, the less jobs available to go around.
Employment Outside the Mission
2014
Where are the jobs?
The FLO’s break down of outside the mission jobs are perhaps too broad to be useful. For instance, 30% of outside the mission jobs are in the field of education but we cannot tell if these are local teaching jobs, online teaching, or something else. There are 199 family members engaged in telework, but we can’t tell in what fields from looking at this graphic.The same goes for working in the local economy, home business and freelancing. If this is meant to be more than a snapshot of family member employment overseas, to actually help folks plan career-wise when moving overseas, we’d suggest that this annual report be beef up with additional details.
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Related articles
- The State of Foreign Service Family Member Employment 2013 – Where Are the Jobs? (diplopundit.net)
- U.S. Interests Section Cuba (USINT) – 12 Plus Things We Learned About Assignment Havana (diplopundit.net)
- The Future of Teleworkers (intercall.com)
While you make the distinction earlier in the post, the statement, “However, you will also note that only about 1/5 of family members in those respective bureaus (EUR-21%, WHA-22%) are able to work inside the mission,” isn’t accurate. Those numbers only indicate how many EFMs are working in the mission out of the total. I have now served in 2 consecutive EUR posts that had/have more jobs than EFMs to fill them, so it’s not always a matter of too few jobs.
Thanks, I have clarified that post to indicate family members working inside the mission. In 2014, EUR has 21% and WHA has 22% family members working in the mission. In 2013, EUR had 19% while WHA had 23% of family members working in the mission. Glad to hear that you found jobs at two consecutive posts. That does not always happen. Another thing I failed to note, the composition of family members at post can change with every rotation. It could be that post has families with younger children, where spouses opt to stay home; or families with older children, where spouses want to work, or families with no children where spouses may also want to work.