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 in spite of a difficult and disinterested recruiting market.

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland talks to members of the media throughout a panel on financial year 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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Credit: Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 recruiting issues at the Pentagon previously 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, the services had a 35% boost in written contracts, and the active elements’ postponed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% larger pool.

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

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to remain very carefully optimistic about the future recruiting operations as we continue to recruit in a market that has low youth propensity to serve, restricted familiarity with military chances, a competitive labor market and a decreasing eligibility among young adults.”

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

The factors behind that are multifold, Helland said. Young Americans have less ties to pals or household members who have actually served in the armed force. There is a decreasing existence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of individuals between the ages of 17 and 24 need some type of waiver to serve due to any variety of disqualifications.

To counter such difficulties, Helland said the armed force has actually implemented a medical pilot program that permits employees to sign up with the military without a waiver for many health conditions – provided they satisfy particular requirements. Additionally, there are service member preparation courses that prepare recruits to satisfy the laborious requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is seeking to reconnect with youth and their influencers by revealing them the value of serving.

” The next generation of Americans to serve need to understand that there has never been a much better time for them to pick military service,” Helland said.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Flying Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder helps with 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 jobs where they have greater involvement in decision-making and can produce a direct concrete effect,” she continued. “Military service offers all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service uses more than 250 occupations which it represents one of the most highly informed companies throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland stated the Defense Department is working hard to counter the narrative that signing up with 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 chances while safeguarding democracy and the liberties we hold dear,” Helland stated.

She included that DOD is reframing this narrative. For example, the department’s Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program will quickly introduce a project to build familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are likewise continuing to have adult influencers promote for military service.