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 despite a difficult and disinterested recruiting market.

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks to members of the media during a panel on 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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Credit: employment Flying Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 recruiting problems at the Pentagon previously today, 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 stated, the services had a 35% increase in composed agreements, and the active parts’ delayed entry program started 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 acquired in 2024,” Helland said.

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to stay meticulously positive about the future recruiting operations as we continue to hire in a market that has low youth propensity to serve, limited familiarity with military opportunities, a competitive labor market and a decreasing eligibility among young people.”

Helland elaborated on those difficulties by discussing that, employment for employment the very first time considering that the metric has actually been tracked, many young individuals have actually never thought about the option of serving in the military.

The factors behind that are multifold, employment Helland stated. Young Americans have less ties to good friends or family members who have served in the armed force. There is a decreasing existence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of people in between the ages of 17 and 24 need some kind of waiver to serve due to any variety of disqualifications.

To counter such obstacles, Helland stated the armed force has carried out a medical pilot program that permits employees to join the military without a waiver for numerous health conditions – provided they meet certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to satisfy the strenuous requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is looking for to reconnect with youth and their influencers by showing them the worth of serving.

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

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder assists in a panel on financial year 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, employment Oct. 30, 2024.
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” Youth today look for a larger function in their lives and desire tasks where they have higher participation in decision-making and can produce a direct tangible impact,” she continued. “Military service provides all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 occupations and employment that it represents one of the most highly educated organizations 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 military is an alternative to attending college or “an option of last resort.”

” We are working to reframe this story so that Americans understand that military service is a pathway to higher education and profession chances while defending democracy and the freedoms we hold dear,” Helland stated.

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