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Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department’s armed services branches hired 12.5% more individuals in fiscal year 2024 than in the year prior despite a tough and disinterested recruiting market.

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks 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 this week, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland said that the services increased the number 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% boost in composed agreements, and the active parts’ delayed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% larger pool.

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

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to stay cautiously optimistic about the future recruiting operations as we continue to recruit in a market that has low youth propensity 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 considering that the metric has been tracked, a lot of young people have actually never ever considered the option of serving in the armed force.

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland referall.us stated. Young Americans have less ties to friends or member of the family who have served in the armed force. There is a decreasing existence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of individuals in between the ages of 17 and 24 need some type of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such obstacles, Helland stated the military has actually executed a medical pilot program that enables recruits to join the armed force without a waiver for various health conditions – provided they meet certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare recruits to satisfy the laborious 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 need to know that there has actually never ever been a better time for them to select military service,” Helland stated.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Flying Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder assists in a panel on 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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” Youth today look for a bigger function in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher involvement in decision-making and can produce a direct tangible effect,” she continued. “Military service provides all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 professions which it represents one of the most highly informed organizations throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland said 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 understand that military service is a pathway to higher education and career chances while protecting democracy and the freedoms we love,” Helland said.

She included that DOD is reframing this story. For example, the department’s Joint Advertising Marketing research and Studies program will quickly launch a campaign to develop familiarity with the American public about the worth of . Plans are also proceeding to have adult influencers advocate for military service.