Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

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

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks with members of the media throughout a panel on fiscal year 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, employment 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, employment DOD.
VIRIN: 241030-D-XI929-1004

While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 hiring issues 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 stated, employment the services had a 35% boost in composed contracts, and employment the active elements’ postponed entry program started FY 2025 with a 10% larger swimming pool.

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

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we require to remain carefully 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 chances, a competitive labor market and a decreasing eligibility among young people.”

Helland elaborated on those obstacles by explaining that, for the very first time because the metric has been tracked, the majority of young individuals have actually never ever considered the option of serving in the military.

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

To counter such difficulties, Helland stated the military has actually executed a medical pilot program that enables employees to join the military without a waiver for employment various health conditions – supplied they meet specific requirements. Additionally, there are service member preparation courses that prepare recruits to satisfy the exhausting 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 need to understand that there has never ever been a much better time for them to select military service,” Helland said.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder in a panel on fiscal year 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 look for a bigger function in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher 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 professions and that it represents among the most highly informed companies throughout the world and employment across all pay grades, Helland stated the Defense Department is striving to counter the story that signing up with the military is an alternative to participating in college or “an option of last option.”

” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans understand that military service is a pathway to higher education and profession chances while safeguarding democracy and the flexibilities 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 introduce a project to build familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are likewise continuing to have adult influencers advocate for military service.