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Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department’s armed services branches hired 12.5% more people in 2024 than in the year prior regardless of 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 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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Credit: Flying Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
VIRIN: 241030-D-XI929-1004

While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 hiring problems at the Pentagon previously this week, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland stated that the services increased the variety of employees 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 composed contracts, and the active components’ delayed entry program started FY 2025 with a 10% larger pool.

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

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we require to remain carefully positive 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 decreasing eligibility amongst young people.”

Helland elaborated on those obstacles by describing that, employment for the very first time given that the metric has actually been tracked, the majority of young people have never thought about the choice of serving in the armed force.

The reasons behind that are multifold, employment Helland said. Young Americans have less ties to good friends or who have actually served in the military. There is a decreasing existence 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 challenges, Helland stated the armed force has actually carried out a medical pilot program that permits recruits to sign up with the armed force without a waiver for employment many health conditions – offered they satisfy certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to meet the difficult requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is looking for to reconnect with youth and their influencers by revealing them the worth of serving.

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

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder assists in a panel on 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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” Youth today look for a larger purpose in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher participation in decision-making and can develop a direct tangible impact,” she continued. “Military service offers all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service offers more than 250 occupations and that it represents among the most extremely educated organizations throughout the world and across all pay grades, employment Helland said the Defense Department is striving to counter the story that signing up with the armed force is an alternative to attending college or “an option of last resort.”

” We are working to reframe this story so that Americans comprehend that military service is a pathway to greater education and profession opportunities while defending democracy and the liberties we hold dear,” Helland said.

She included that DOD is reframing this story. For instance, employment the department’s Joint Advertising Marketing research and Studies program will quickly introduce a campaign to construct familiarity with the American public about the worth of military service. Plans are also continuing to have adult influencers advocate for military service.