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

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks to members of the media during a panel on 2025 recruiting goals at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024. Share: × Share Copy Link Email Facebook X. . WhatsApp

Download: Full Size (235.52 KB). Credit: Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD. VIRIN: 241030-D-XI929-1004

While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 recruiting issues at the Pentagon earlier 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% increase in composed contracts, and the active components’ postponed entry program began 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 acquired in 2024,” Helland said.

” Nevertheless,” she continued, “we need to remain cautiously positive about the future recruiting operations as we continue to recruit in a market that has low youth propensity to serve, minimal familiarity with military opportunities, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility among young grownups.”

Helland elaborated on those difficulties by describing that, for the very first time because the metric has actually been tracked, a lot of youths have actually never ever thought about the alternative of serving in the armed force.

The reasons behind that are multifold, Helland stated. Young Americans have less ties to good friends or member of the family who have served in the armed force. There is a declining existence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of individuals 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 said the armed force has actually executed a medical pilot program that enables employees to join the military without a waiver for numerous health conditions - provided they fulfill specific requirements. Additionally, there are service member preparation courses that prepare recruits to fulfill the exhausting 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 actually never been a much better time for them to select military service,” Helland said.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder assists in a panel on financial year 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 larger purpose in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher involvement in decision-making and can produce a direct tangible effect,” she continued. “Military service provides all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 occupations which it represents among the most extremely informed companies throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland job said the Defense Department is working hard to counter the narrative that signing up with the armed force is an alternative to going to college or “an option of last resort.”

” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans comprehend that military service is a path to higher education and profession opportunities while safeguarding democracy and the liberties we hold dear,” Helland said.

She added that DOD is reframing this narrative. For example, the department’s Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program will soon introduce a project to build familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are likewise proceeding to have adult influencers promote for military service.