The army still asking civilian employers for reference?

The reference is for your security clearance. Even though your MOS does not require a clearance, most people get put in for a secret clearance anyway.

My take is a bit different. First, people don't get clearances just to get clearances. There're billet requirements for it or not. The little known thing that frequently applies is the ABILITY to obtain a clearance. Let's say you swore in or hired on with the Feds as a Civil Servant. Many MOS and Civilian Series/Positions require the ability up front. Some positions or career paths have a deal where a clearance will be required at some point, the process takes 9 months at least, so there are some cases where a jump start is required prior to the billet actually being occupied (Strategic Assets for sure is one of them). We terminated both MIL and Civil Service employees who refused to provide information or got stung during the background investigation. Purely an administrative action. The Services are beat up frequently for spreading clearances around like EOT fruit salad. Each Service must justify the requirement by billet. That gets reviewed/challenged at DoD level. You don't want to be the Skipper that has sponsored clearances that are not required. The IGs I've had frequently had the security stuff as a "concentration area". That's codespeak for if we find one problem, you're in Deep Kimchi. I made sure to not fudge anything during my watch. I've seen a couple cases of early exits over it. Doesn't happen frequently, but it does.

It's for the security clearance. I swore into the Navy two months ago and they also asked for my job information and personal references.