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 regardless of a difficult and disinterested recruiting market.

Katie Helland Director employment of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks to members of the media during a panel on financial year 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, employment 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 said 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% boost in written agreements, and the active elements’ postponed entry program started FY 2025 with a 10% bigger pool.

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

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to remain very carefully optimistic about the future recruiting operations as we continue to hire 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 discussing that, employment for the first time given that the metric has actually been tracked, many youths have never ever considered the alternative of in the armed force.

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland said. Young Americans have fewer ties to good 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 in between the ages of 17 and 24 need some type of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such challenges, Helland said the armed force has actually executed a medical pilot program that enables employees to sign up with the military without a waiver for many health conditions – supplied they meet certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to satisfy the laborious requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is looking for to reconnect with youth and their influencers by revealing them the value of serving.

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

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

Explaining that U.S. military service offers more than 250 occupations and that it represents among the most highly educated companies throughout the world and throughout all pay grades, Helland stated the Defense Department is striving to counter the narrative that joining the armed force is an alternative to attending college or “an option of last hope.”

” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans understand that military service is a pathway to greater education and career opportunities while safeguarding democracy and the freedoms we love,” Helland said.

She included that DOD is reframing this narrative. For employment example, the department’s Joint Advertising Market Research and employment Studies program will quickly introduce a project 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.