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

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks to 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

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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 recruiting problems at the Pentagon earlier this week, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland stated 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% boost in composed agreements, and the active components’ 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 meticulously 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 chances, a competitive labor market and a decreasing eligibility amongst young people.”

Helland elaborated on those obstacles by discussing that, for the very first time because the metric has been tracked, most young people have never thought about the option of serving in the armed force.

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland said. Young Americans have fewer ties to pals or relative who have 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 24 need some kind of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such obstacles, Helland stated the military has actually executed a medical pilot program that permits recruits to join the military without a waiver for various - supplied they meet certain requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare recruits to satisfy the laborious requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is looking for to reconnect with youth and job their influencers by showing them the value of serving.

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

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder facilitates a panel on 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024. Share:. ×. Share. Copy Link. Email. Facebook. X. LinkedIn. WhatsApp

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” Youth today look for a bigger purpose in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher participation in decision-making and can create a direct concrete impact,” she continued. “Military service provides 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 across all pay grades, Helland stated the Defense Department is working hard to counter the story 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 comprehend that military service is a pathway to higher education and career chances while safeguarding democracy and the freedoms we hold dear,” Helland stated.

She included that DOD is reframing this narrative. For job example, the department’s Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program will soon launch a campaign to develop familiarity with the American public about the worth of military service. Plans are also continuing to have adult influencers promote for military service.