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 despite a challenging and employment disinterested recruiting market.

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks with members of the media throughout a panel on financial year 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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Credit: Air 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, 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 said, the services had a 35% increase in composed contracts, and the active parts’ postponed 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’ve acquired in 2024,” Helland said.

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we require to stay carefully positive about the future recruiting operations as we continue to hire in a market that has low youth tendency to serve, minimal familiarity with military chances, a competitive labor market and a decreasing eligibility amongst young people.”

Helland elaborated on those difficulties by describing that, for the very first time given that the metric has been tracked, the majority of young people have actually never thought about the option of serving in the military.

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland said. Young Americans have fewer ties to friends or employment relative who have actually served in the military. There is a decreasing presence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of people in between the ages of 17 and 24 require some kind of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such obstacles, Helland said the armed force has implemented a medical pilot program that allows recruits to sign up with the armed force without a waiver for employment many health conditions – offered they satisfy particular requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to fulfill the exhausting requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is seeking to reconnect with youth and their influencers by showing them the value of serving.

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

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Flying Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder facilitates a panel on 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, employment Oct. 30, employment 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 concrete impact,” she continued. “Military service provides all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service uses more than 250 professions and that it represents one of the most highly educated companies throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland employment stated the Defense Department is working hard to counter the story that signing up with the military is an alternative to participating in college or “an alternative of last option.”

” We are working to reframe this story so that Americans understand that military service is a path to greater education and profession opportunities while defending democracy and the flexibilities we love,” Helland employment said.

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