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Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department’s armed services branches recruited 12.5% more people 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 during a panel on fiscal year 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, job 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 earlier today, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland stated that the services increased the variety 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’ delayed entry program began 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’ve acquired in 2024,” Helland said.

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to stay very carefully optimistic about the future recruiting operations as we continue to recruit in a market that has low youth tendency to serve, minimal familiarity with military chances, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility among young people.”

Helland elaborated on those challenges by describing that, for the very first time since the metric has actually been tracked, a lot of young people have actually never ever thought about the alternative of serving in the armed force.

The reasons behind that are multifold, said. Young Americans have less ties to friends or member of the family who have actually served in the military. There is a decreasing presence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of individuals between the ages of 17 and 24 need some type of waiver to serve due to any variety of disqualifications.

To counter such challenges, Helland stated the military has carried out a medical pilot program that allows recruits to join the military without a waiver for various health conditions – provided they satisfy particular requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to meet the laborious 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 need to know that there has actually never been a much better time for them to choose military service,” Helland said.

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

Explaining that U.S. military service offers more than 250 occupations and that it represents among the most highly educated organizations throughout the world and throughout all pay grades, Helland said the Defense Department is working hard to counter the narrative that joining the military is an alternative to going to college or “an option of last option.”

” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans comprehend that military service is a path to greater education and career opportunities while safeguarding democracy and the flexibilities we love,” Helland stated.

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