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 job regardless of a difficult and job indifferent recruiting market.

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks to members of the media during a panel on 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
Share:
×
Share
Copy Link
Email
Facebook
X.
LinkedIn.
WhatsApp

Download: Full Size (235.52 KB).
Credit: Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
VIRIN: 241030-D-XI929-1004

While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 recruiting concerns at the Pentagon earlier 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 components’ postponed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% bigger 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 said.

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to stay very carefully positive about the future recruiting operations as we continue to recruit in a market that has low youth tendency to serve, limited familiarity with military opportunities, a competitive labor market and a decreasing eligibility among young people.”

Helland elaborated on those obstacles by discussing that, for the very first time considering that the metric has actually been tracked, a lot of young individuals have actually never ever considered the choice of serving in the military.

The factors behind that are multifold, Helland stated. Young Americans have fewer ties to friends or relative who have actually served in the armed force. There is a declining existence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of people in between the ages of 17 and 24 need some type of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such challenges, job Helland said the military has actually implemented a medical pilot program that to join the armed force without a waiver for many health conditions – provided they satisfy certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to satisfy the exhausting requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is seeking to reconnect with youth and their influencers by showing them the worth of serving.

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

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder helps with a panel on 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
Share:.
×.
Share.
Copy Link.
Email.
Facebook.
X.
LinkedIn.
WhatsApp

Download: Full Size (266.24 KB).
Credit: Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
VIRIN: 241030-D-XI929-1016

” Youth today seek a larger purpose in their lives and desire tasks where they have higher involvement in decision-making and can produce a direct tangible impact,” she continued. “Military service provides all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 professions which it represents among the most highly educated companies throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland said the Defense Department is striving to counter the narrative that joining the armed force is an alternative to going to college or “an option of last hope.”

” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans comprehend that military service is a pathway to greater education and profession chances while defending democracy and the liberties we hold dear,” Helland stated.

She added that DOD is reframing this narrative. For example, the department’s Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program will quickly introduce a campaign to construct familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are also continuing to have adult influencers advocate for job military service.