Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department’s armed services branches hired 12.5% more individuals in financial year 2024 than in the year prior in spite of a tough 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 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 recruiting concerns at the Pentagon earlier this week, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland stated that the services increased the number of recruits from 200,000 in FY 2023 to 225,000 in FY 2024, employment which ended September 30.

Additionally, employment she said, the services had a 35% increase in written agreements, and employment the active parts’ delayed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% larger swimming pool.

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

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we require to stay meticulously optimistic 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 people.”

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

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland said. Young Americans have less ties to pals or member of the family 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 type of waiver to serve due to any variety of disqualifications.

To counter such challenges, Helland said the military has actually implemented a medical pilot program that allows employees to sign up with the military without a waiver for various health conditions – supplied they fulfill specific requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to satisfy the difficult requirements of military service. Moreover, employment DOD is seeking to reconnect with youth and their influencers by revealing them the worth of serving.

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

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Flying Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder helps with a panel on 2025 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 higher participation in decision-making and can produce a direct concrete impact,” she continued. “Military service provides all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service uses more than 250 occupations which it represents one of the most highly informed organizations throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland employment said 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 hope.”

” We are working to reframe this story so that Americans comprehend that military service is a path to higher education and career opportunities while protecting democracy and the liberties we love,” Helland said.

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