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 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 hiring problems at the Pentagon previously this week, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland said 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, she stated, the services had a 35% increase in written agreements, employment and the active components’ delayed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% bigger swimming pool.

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

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

Helland elaborated on those challenges by explaining that, for the very first time since the metric has actually been tracked, the majority of young people have never thought about the alternative of serving in the military.

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland said. Young Americans have less ties to buddies or family members who have actually served in the military. There is a declining existence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of people in between the ages of 17 and employment 24 need some type of waiver to serve due to any variety of disqualifications.

To counter such challenges, Helland said the military has implemented a medical pilot program that allows employees to sign up with the armed force without a waiver for numerous health conditions – offered they meet particular requirements. Additionally, employment there are service member preparation courses that prepare recruits to meet the strenuous requirements of military service. Moreover, employment DOD is looking for to reconnect with youth and employment their influencers by showing them the worth of serving.

” The next generation of Americans to serve should understand that there has never been a better time for them to choose military service,” Helland stated.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Flying Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder assists in a panel on financial year 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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” Youth today seek a larger function in their lives and desire jobs where they have greater 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 professions which it represents one of the most extremely educated organizations 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 attending 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 safeguarding democracy and the freedoms we hold dear,” Helland said.

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