Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

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

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland talks to members of the media during a panel on fiscal 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 concerns at the Pentagon previously today, employment 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 said, the services had a 35% increase in written agreements, and the active elements’ 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 construct off the momentum that we’ve acquired in 2024,” Helland said.

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we require to remain carefully positive 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 adults.”

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

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

To counter such obstacles, Helland stated the armed force has actually implemented a medical pilot program that allows employees to sign up with the military without a waiver for various health conditions – supplied they meet specific requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to fulfill the difficult 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 must 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 facilitates a panel on 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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” Youth today seek a larger purpose in their lives and desire tasks where they have greater involvement in decision-making and can develop a direct tangible impact,” she continued. “Military service provides all of this.”

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

” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans understand that military service is a pathway to higher education and profession chances 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 Marketing research and program will soon introduce a campaign to build familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are also proceeding to have adult influencers promote for military service.