Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department's armed services branches hired 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 talks to members of the media throughout a panel on fiscal year 2025 recruiting objectives 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 concerns at the Pentagon previously today, 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 stated, the services had a 35% boost in composed contracts, and the active parts' postponed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% bigger swimming pool.

" [The Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the services will continue to build off the momentum that we have actually acquired in 2024," Helland stated.

" Nevertheless," she continued, "we require to stay cautiously optimistic about the future recruiting operations as we continue to hire in a market that has low youth tendency to serve, limited familiarity with military opportunities, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility amongst young people."

Helland employment elaborated on those difficulties by describing that, for the very first time because the metric has actually been tracked, a lot of youths have actually never ever considered the choice of serving in the armed force.

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland said. Young Americans have less ties to pals or relative who have served in the military. There is a decreasing presence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of people between the ages of 17 and 24 need some type of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such challenges, Helland employment said the military has actually carried out a medical pilot program that allows recruits to join the military without a waiver for various health conditions - offered they fulfill particular requirements. Additionally, there are service member preparation courses that prepare employees to fulfill the laborious requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is looking for to reconnect with youth and their by showing them the worth of serving.

" The next generation of Americans to serve ought to understand that there has actually never been a better time for them to pick military service," Helland employment said.

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

Explaining that U.S. military service offers more than 250 occupations and that it represents among the most extremely educated organizations throughout the world and employment across all pay grades, Helland stated the Defense Department is striving to counter the story that joining the armed force is an alternative to going to college or "a choice of last hope."

" We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans understand that military service is a path to higher education and profession opportunities while defending democracy and the flexibilities we love," Helland said.

She included that DOD is reframing this story. For instance, the department's Joint Advertising Marketing research and Studies program will quickly launch a project to develop familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are likewise proceeding to have adult influencers promote for military service.