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

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland speaks to members of the media throughout a panel on 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, 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 hiring concerns at the Pentagon previously this week, 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 said, the services had a 35% boost in written contracts, and the active elements' postponed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% larger pool.

" [The Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the services will continue to develop off the momentum that we have actually acquired in 2024," Helland said.

" Nevertheless," she continued, "we require to remain very carefully positive 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 people."

Helland elaborated on those obstacles by discussing that, for the first time since the metric has actually been tracked, the majority of youths 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 buddies or family members 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 require some kind of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such difficulties, Helland said the military has actually implemented a medical pilot program that allows recruits to sign up with the military without a waiver for various health conditions - provided they fulfill specific requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to fulfill the exhausting requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is seeking to reconnect with youth and their influencers by showing them the value of serving.

" The next generation of Americans to serve need to understand that there has actually never been a much better time for them to pick military service," Helland said.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder facilitates a panel on fiscal year 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 tasks where they have greater participation in decision-making and can develop a direct tangible effect," she continued. "Military service uses all of this."

Explaining that U.S. military service offers more than 250 professions and that it represents one of the most highly informed organizations 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 participating in college or "a choice of last option."

" We are working to reframe this story so that Americans understand that military service is a path to higher education and career chances while protecting democracy and the liberties we hold dear," Helland said.

She included that DOD is reframing this story. For example, the department's Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program will quickly release a campaign to build familiarity with the American public about the value of military service. Plans are likewise continuing to have adult influencers advocate for employment military service.