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

Katie Helland Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland talks to members of the media throughout a panel on fiscal year 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 hiring concerns at the Pentagon earlier today, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland said 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, ura.cc she said, the services had a 35% increase in written contracts, and the active parts' postponed entry program started 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 acquired in 2024," Helland stated.

" 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 tendency to serve, restricted familiarity with military chances, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility among young people."

Helland elaborated on those difficulties by discussing that, for trademarketclassifieds.com the very first time considering that the metric has been tracked, the majority of youths have actually never thought about the choice of serving in the military.

The factors behind that are multifold, Helland stated. Young Americans have fewer ties to pals or relative who have actually 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 need some type of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such challenges, Helland said the military has carried out a medical pilot program that permits recruits to sign up with the military without a waiver for various health conditions - offered they fulfill specific requirements. Additionally, there are service member prep courses that prepare employees to meet the difficult 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 ought to know that there has never been a better time for them to choose military service," Helland stated.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Flying 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 seek a bigger purpose in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher involvement in decision-making and can produce a direct concrete impact," she continued. "Military service provides all of this."

Explaining that U.S. military service uses more than 250 occupations and that it represents among the most highly educated companies throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland said the Defense Department is striving to counter the narrative that joining the military is an alternative to going to college or "a choice of last option."

" We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans comprehend that military service is a path to higher education and profession opportunities while protecting democracy and the freedoms we hold dear," Helland stated.

She included that DOD is reframing this story. For instance, the department's Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program will soon release a campaign to develop familiarity with the American public about the worth of military service. Plans are likewise proceeding to have adult influencers advocate for military service.