Military services raise recruiting targets as they recover in 2024

After years of shortages, nearly all active-duty components of the U.S. military met their recruiting targets this year and plan to increase those targets in 2025.

The military recruited 225,000 people in fiscal year 2024, 25,000 more than last year, Kathy Helland, the Pentagon’s director of military entry policy, told reporters Wednesday.

Service officials have previously cited declining desire to serve, limited familiarity with the military among the public, a competitive job market and declining demands among young people as the biggest obstacles to military recruitment, and officials said Wednesday those challenges remain. Only about 23 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 are eligible to serve without any waiver, Helland said.

But as recruiters re-establish themselves in post-COVID communities, services are seeing more willingness to serve, and that “increasing propensity” has helped them reach their recruiting goals this year, Helland said.

“When our recruiters go out and engage with a person, they can develop an affinity for one person at a time. I think that’s where we’ve seen success is with operations and (when) we’ve been able to get back into communities. If you think about what happened during COVID, we had to go out of communities for almost two years. It takes time to go back and develop those relationships again,” Helland said.

In 2025, the military services plan to build on this year’s momentum and raise annual recruiting targets.

There will be an army increase its recruitment target of up to 61,000 people in 2025 after reaching a recruitment target of 55,000 this year, and a target of 10,000 people in the service Deferred Entry Program” said Maj. Gen. Johnny Davis, commander of Army Recruiting Command.

The Air Force barely met its recruiting goal of 27,100 troops in 2024, but plans to increase that goal to 32,500 in 2025, Brig said. Gen. Christopher Amrhein, Air Force Recruiting Commander. A 20 percent increase in the Air Force is ambitious, but Amrhein believes it is achievable. Additionally, the Space Force will increase its recruiting goal by 30 percent in 2025.

The Navy will maintain its 2025 recruiting target at 40,600 recruits – after just hitting its 2024 target, said Rear Adm. James Waters III, commander of Naval Recruiting Command.

The Marine Corps will increase its goal to 29,300 recruits next year after reaching this year’s goal of 27,500 Marines, said Maj. Gen. William Bowers, chief of Marine Corps Recruiting Command.