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Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department’s armed services branches recruited 12.5% more individuals 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 speaks 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: Flying Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
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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 number of recruits 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 elements’ postponed entry program started FY 2025 with a 10% bigger swimming pool.

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

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to stay carefully 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 amongst young people.”

Helland elaborated on those difficulties by that, referall.us for the very first time given that the metric has actually been tracked, a lot of youths have actually never considered the option of serving in the armed force.

The factors behind that are multifold, Helland said. Young Americans have less ties to friends or member of the family who have served in the armed force. There is a declining 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 difficulties, Helland said the military has actually carried out a medical pilot program that enables recruits to join the armed force without a waiver for various health conditions – provided they fulfill particular requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare recruits to fulfill the difficult 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 ought to understand that there has actually never been a much better time for them to select military service,” Helland said.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder facilitates a panel on fiscal year 2025 recruiting objectives 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 participation in decision-making and can create a direct tangible impact,” she continued. “Military service provides all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 occupations and that it represents one of the most highly educated companies throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland stated the Defense Department is striving to counter the story that joining the military is an alternative to participating in college or “a choice of last option.”

” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans understand that military service is a path to higher education and profession opportunities while defending democracy and the liberties we love,” Helland stated.

She added that DOD is reframing this story. For example, the department’s Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program will soon launch a campaign to develop familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are likewise proceeding to have adult influencers advocate for military service.