The U.S. Air Force expects to miss its goal of recruiting new active-duty personnel by about 10 percent when the fiscal year draws to a close at the end of the month.
In real numbers, the Air Force sought to bring 26,877 new recruits to its active-duty component between Oct. 1, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2023.
Leslie Brown, a spokeswoman for the Air Force Recruiting Service, told NTD News that the service would likely come out about 2,700 recruits short of the fiscal year goal.
But she said those numbers were still an estimate and that the service still has one more week to ship recruits before it posts final recruiting figures for the year.
The 10 percent miss marks the first time the military service has failed to meet its active-duty recruiting quota since 1999.
Despite the shortfall, Mr. Kendall expressed some optimism in his comments with Military.com.
“I’m overall encouraged by where we are in recruiting, but we still have a lot of work.”
Mr. Kendall said the Air Force is preparing to address long-standing recruiting issues and hopes to improve matters next year.
While the Air Force missed its recruiting goal, the U.S. Space Force—which is organized under the purview of the Department of the Air Force—did manage to overshoot its recruiting quote for the 2023 fiscal year. The Space Force brought in 517 new enlisted personnel, about 110 percent of the 472 recruit goal the branch set out for at the start of the 2023 fiscal year.
The Air Force’s 10 percent recruiting miss this year comes after all military branches struggled with recruiting in fiscal year 2022.
Recruiting shortfalls in one year can also have a compounding effect the following year.
In a typical recruiting year, the military branches often meet their annual recruiting goal and then have a pool of potential new recruits left over in delayed-entry programs, giving them a headstart on the next year’s recruiting drive.
The Marine Corps, for example, typically has half of its recruiting numbers lined up at the start of every fiscal year just from the number of candidates held over from the previous year and kept in the service’s delayed entry program. At the start of the 2023 fiscal year, however, the Marine Corps only had about 30 percent of its recruiting quota ready in its delayed entry program.
The other military branches also had to dig into their delayed entry candidate pools at the end of the fiscal year 2022, shorting their 2023 recruiting drive to meet their 2022 goals.
“Using Air Force lexicon, I’d say we’re doing a ‘dead-stick landing’ as we come into the end of fiscal year ’22, and we’re going to have to turn around on Oct. 1 and the start of the new fiscal year and do an after-burner takeoff,” retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Ed Thomas said of the recruiting situation from fiscal year 2022 to 2023.
Mr. Thomas, who retired from the Air Force earlier this year, said, “We’re going to be starting 2023 in a tougher position than we started 2022.”
What’s Causing the Recruiting Challenges?
In her emailed statement to NTD News, Ms. Brown said the short-term struggle for military recruiters is contending with a national labor shortage and competitive job market.“The battle for talent is intense,” she said.
Ms. Brown also pointed to a general sense of unfamiliarity with the U.S. military among potential recruits as another reason for the recruiting challenges the branch is facing.
The Air Force Recruiting Service spokeswoman said that lack of familiarity with the military could become a long-term problem. She said there is an overall declining interest in military service among today’s potential candidates.
She also said the new generation of potential military recruits also struggles with eligibility, with only about 23 percent of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 being able to serve without needing a waiver.
