Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department’s armed services branches recruited 12.5% more individuals in 2024 than in the year prior despite a difficult and indifferent recruiting market.

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks with members of the media throughout a panel on 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 hiring problems at the Pentagon previously today, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland employment said 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 stated, the services had a 35% increase in written agreements, and the active components’ delayed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% bigger swimming pool.

” [The Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the services will continue to construct off the momentum that we’ve acquired in 2024,” Helland stated.

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we require to remain cautiously optimistic about the future recruiting operations as we continue to hire in a market that has low youth tendency to serve, restricted familiarity with military chances, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility amongst young adults.”

Helland elaborated on those challenges by discussing that, for the first time because the metric has been tracked, most youths have never considered the alternative of serving in the armed force.

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland employment stated. Young Americans have fewer ties to pals or employment member of the family who have served in the military. There is a decreasing existence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of individuals in between the ages of 17 and 24 require some type of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such challenges, Helland stated the armed force has actually carried out a medical pilot program that permits employees to sign up with the armed force without a waiver for numerous health conditions – supplied they satisfy specific requirements. Additionally, there are service member preparation courses that prepare recruits to fulfill the laborious requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is looking for to reconnect with youth and their influencers by showing them the worth of serving.

” The next generation of Americans to serve should know that there has never ever been a much better time for them to select military service,” Helland employment said.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Flying Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder assists in a panel on 2025 at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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” Youth today seek a larger function in their lives and desire tasks where they have greater involvement in decision-making and can develop a direct concrete impact,” she continued. “Military service provides all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 occupations and that it represents among the most highly informed organizations throughout the world and throughout all pay grades, Helland said the Defense Department is striving to counter the story that joining the armed force is an alternative to attending college or “an option of last option.”

” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans comprehend that military service is a pathway to greater education and profession opportunities while safeguarding democracy and the liberties we love,” Helland said.

She included that DOD is reframing this narrative. For instance, the department’s Joint Advertising Marketing research and Studies program will soon release a campaign to develop familiarity with the American public about the worth of military service. Plans are likewise continuing to have adult influencers promote for military service.