Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges
The Defense Department’s armed services branches recruited 12.5% more people in 2024 than in the year prior regardless of a tough and disinterested recruiting market.
Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks with members of the media during a panel on financial year 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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Credit: Flying Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 hiring issues at the Pentagon previously this week, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland stated that the services increased the variety of employees from 200,000 in FY 2023 to 225,000 in FY 2024, which ended September 30.
Additionally, she said, the services had a 35% increase in written agreements, and the active parts’ delayed entry program started FY 2025 with a 10% bigger pool.
” [The Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the services will continue to develop off the momentum that we’ve acquired in 2024,” Helland said.
” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to remain very carefully positive about the future recruiting operations as we continue to hire in a market that has low youth propensity to serve, minimal familiarity with military chances, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility amongst young grownups.”
Helland elaborated on those challenges by discussing that, for the very first time considering that the metric has been tracked, the majority of young individuals have actually never ever considered the option of serving in the armed force.
The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland stated. Young Americans have less ties to buddies or family members who have served in the military. There is a decreasing existence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of individuals between the ages of 17 and 24 need some type of waiver to serve due to any variety of disqualifications.
To counter such challenges, Helland stated the military has actually carried out a medical pilot program that allows recruits to join the armed force without a waiver for various health conditions – provided they satisfy certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to fulfill the difficult requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is seeking to reconnect with youth and their influencers by revealing them the worth of serving.
” The next generation of Americans to serve ought to know that there has never ever been a better time for them to select military service,” Helland said.
Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder helps with a panel on 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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” Youth today seek a larger purpose in their lives and desire jobs where they have greater involvement in decision-making and can develop a direct tangible effect,” she continued. “Military service offers all of this.”
Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 occupations which it represents among the most highly educated organizations throughout the world and throughout all pay grades, Helland stated the Defense Department is striving to counter the narrative that joining the military is an alternative to participating in college or “an alternative of last option.”
” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans comprehend that military service is a pathway to higher education and career opportunities while protecting democracy and the freedoms we hold dear,” Helland said.
She added that DOD is reframing this narrative. For example, the department’s Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program will quickly launch a project to construct familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are likewise proceeding to have adult influencers advocate for military service.