Inove
Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges
The Defense Department’s armed services branches recruited 12.5% more individuals in financial year 2024 than in the year prior referall.us in spite of a challenging and disinterested recruiting market.
Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks with members of the media during a panel on 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
Share:
×
Share
Copy Link
Email
Facebook
X.
LinkedIn.
WhatsApp
Download: Full Size (235.52 KB).
Credit: Flying Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
VIRIN: 241030-D-XI929-1004
While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 recruiting concerns at the Pentagon previously 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 began FY 2025 with a 10% bigger swimming pool.
” [The Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the services will continue to build off the momentum that we’ve acquired in 2024,” Helland said.
” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to remain cautiously positive about the future recruiting operations as we continue to hire in a market that has low youth tendency to serve, minimal familiarity with military chances, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility amongst young people.”
Helland elaborated on those difficulties by discussing that, for the very first time given that the metric has been tracked, a lot of young people have never thought about the choice of serving in the armed force.
The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland stated. Young Americans have fewer ties to good friends or relative who have served in the military. There is a decreasing presence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of people between the ages of 17 and 24 require some type of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.
To counter such challenges, Helland stated the armed force has implemented a medical pilot program that enables employees to join the military without a waiver for various health conditions – supplied they satisfy certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to satisfy the strenuous 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 know that there has actually never ever been a better time for them to choose military service,” Helland stated.
Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Flying Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder helps with a panel on fiscal year 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
Share:.
×.
Share.
Copy Link.
Email.
Facebook.
X.
LinkedIn.
WhatsApp
Download: Full Size (266.24 KB).
Credit: Flying Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
VIRIN: 241030-D-XI929-1016
” Youth today look for a bigger purpose in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher participation in decision-making and can develop a direct concrete impact,” she continued. “Military service offers all of this.”
Explaining that U.S. military service uses more than 250 professions which it represents among the most extremely informed companies throughout the world and throughout all pay grades, Helland said the Defense Department is working hard to counter the story that joining the armed force is an alternative to going to college or “an option of last option.”
” We are working to reframe this story 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 Studies program will soon launch a campaign to develop familiarity with the about the value of military service. Plans are also continuing to have adult influencers promote for military service.