Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department’s armed services branches hired 12.5% more individuals in financial year 2024 than in the year prior despite a challenging and indifferent recruiting market.

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland talks to members of the media throughout a panel on 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, referall.us Oct. 30, 2024.
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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 hiring concerns at the Pentagon earlier today, 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 stated, the services had a 35% increase in composed contracts, and the active elements’ delayed 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 have actually gained in 2024,» Helland stated.

» Nevertheless,» she continued, «we need to stay 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 grownups.»

Helland elaborated on those challenges by discussing that, for the very first time considering that the metric has been tracked, a lot of young people have actually never ever considered the choice of serving in the military.

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland stated. Young Americans have less ties to friends or member of the family who have served in the military. There is a declining 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 carried out a medical pilot program that enables employees to sign up with the armed force without a waiver for various health conditions – supplied they satisfy certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member preparation courses that prepare recruits to satisfy the exhausting requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is looking for 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 actually never ever been a better time for them to pick military service,» Helland said.

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 bigger function in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher participation in decision-making and can create a direct concrete effect,» she continued. «Military service provides all of this.»

Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 occupations and that it represents among the most highly educated organizations throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland stated the Defense Department is striving to counter the story that signing up with the armed force is an alternative to in college or «an alternative of last hope.»

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

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