The armed services branches recruited 12.5% more individuals in 2024 than in the year prior despite a challenging and disinterested recruiting market.
Katie Helland Director job of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland job speaks to members of the media throughout a panel on 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, job Oct. 30, 2024.
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Credit: Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 recruiting concerns at the Pentagon previously today, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland job said that the services increased the number of employees from 200,000 in FY 2023 to 225,000 in FY 2024, which ended September 30.
Additionally, she said, the services had a 35% boost in written contracts, and job the active elements' delayed entry program started FY 2025 with a 10% larger 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 said.
" Nevertheless," she continued, "we need to remain carefully optimistic about the future recruiting operations as we continue to recruit in a market that has low youth propensity to serve, restricted familiarity with military chances, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility amongst young adults."
Helland elaborated on those obstacles by discussing that, for the very first time because the metric has been tracked, a lot of young people have actually never ever thought about the alternative of serving in the military.
The factors behind that are multifold, Helland stated. Young Americans have less ties to good friends or member of the family who have actually served in the armed force. There is a declining existence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of people between the ages of 17 and 24 need some kind of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.
To counter such challenges, Helland stated the military has actually carried out a medical pilot program that allows recruits to join 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 fulfill the difficult requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is seeking 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 better time for them to select military service," Helland job 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 tasks where they have higher participation in decision-making and can produce a direct tangible impact," she continued. "Military service provides all of this."
Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 professions and that it represents among the most highly educated organizations throughout the world and throughout all pay grades, Helland stated the Defense Department is working hard to counter the narrative that joining the military is an alternative to going to college or "a choice of last resort."
" We are working to reframe this story so that Americans comprehend that military service is a path to greater education and profession chances while protecting democracy and the liberties we love," Helland job stated.
She included that DOD is reframing this narrative. For example, the department's Joint Advertising Marketing research and Studies program will quickly release a project to construct familiarity with the American public about the worth of military service. Plans are likewise proceeding to have adult influencers promote for military service.
