Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department’s armed services branches hired 12.5% more people in fiscal year 2024 than in the year prior regardless of a difficult and indifferent recruiting market.

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland talks to members of the media during a panel on 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 hiring problems at the Pentagon earlier 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, which ended September 30.

Additionally, she stated, the services had a 35% increase in composed contracts, and the active components’ delayed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% larger swimming pool.

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

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need 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, minimal familiarity with military opportunities, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility amongst young people.”

Helland employment elaborated on those challenges by describing that, for the very first time because the metric has actually been tracked, a lot of young individuals have actually never ever considered the choice of serving in the armed force.

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

To counter such obstacles, Helland said the military has actually executed a medical pilot program that enables employees to sign up with the armed force without a waiver for various health conditions – offered they meet certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare recruits to fulfill the strenuous requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is seeking to reconnect with youth and their influencers by revealing them the worth of serving.

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

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Flying Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder helps with a panel on financial year 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, employment Oct. 30, 2024.
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” Youth today look for a bigger purpose in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher involvement in decision-making and can create a direct tangible impact,” she continued. “Military service offers all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 professions which it represents one of the most extremely informed organizations throughout the world and throughout 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 hope.”

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

She included that DOD is this story. For example, employment the department’s Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program will soon release a project to develop familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are also continuing to have adult influencers promote for military service.