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Economy fueled recruiting gains in FY09

The active and reserve military branches all met or exceeded both their numeric and quality recruiting goals during fiscal 2009 for the first time in the 36-year history of the all-volunteer force, the Pentagon’s top military personnel policy official said Tuesday.

In addition, retention was deemed “successful” in all the services, the Pentagon said in a press release. No retention figures were provided.

A weak economy and increased spending on recruiting were the primary reasons for the recruiting successes, said Bill Carr, under secretary of defense for military personnel policy, who met with Pentagon reporters along with each service’s top recruiting officials.

“The investment per accession we were able to deliver this year — because we hadn’t built in the unemployment [rate], as it turned out ... left us with more dollars per recruit than proved to be minimally necessary, given the level of unemployment,” Carr said.

The seasonally adjusted U.S. unemployment rate for September stood at 9.8 percent; another 214,000 Americans lost their jobs that month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Pentagon spent about $5 billion on all recruiting-related costs in fiscal 2009, according to Curtis Gilroy, the Pentagon’s director of accession policy. That enabled the recruitment of 168,968 active-duty troops and 127,537 reservists, the Pentagon said.

Enlistment bonuses

About 40 percent of all recruits received enlistment bonuses out of that $5 billion pot. These totaled between $9,000 and $10,000, variably, per Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps recruit, while the Army total was about $22,000 per recruit. Overall, the Pentagon spent an average of about $2,000 more per recruit bonus in fiscal 2009 than the year before, Carr said.

Carr seemed most pleased with the improvements in recruit quality. The Army led the way on one measure, rising 11 percent from fiscal year 2008’s figure of roughly 83 percent high school graduates to the past fiscal year’s figure of 94.7 percent, according to Maj. Gen. Don Campbell, head of Army Recruiting Command.

The national average is 75 percent; the service-wide accessions average was 96 percent; the Pentagon benchmark is 90 percent, Carr said.

Ninety-six percent of the Navy’s recruits were high school graduates in fiscal 2009, while Marine Corps and Air Force recruits graduated at a 99 percent clip.

The reserve components all exceeded 90 percent as well, ranging from the Air National Guard figure of 91 percent to the Air Force Reserves 99 percent. The Army Reserve, which last year recruited 89 percent high school graduates, boosted that figure to 97 percent, according to the Pentagon’s figures.

Another measure of “high quality” is whether a recruit scores at or above the 50th percentile on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, given to all potential recruits. The Pentagon wants 60 percent of each service’s recruits to score at that level. Every active and reserve component exceeded that figure, ranging from the Army Reserve’s low of 63 percent to the Air Force’s 81 percent. The service-wide average was 73 percent.

High-quality recruits are more expensive to recruit, Carr noted.

Recruit quality

A direct correlation exists between the economy and recruit quality, economists say. John Warner and Curtis Simon of Clemson University have estimated that a 10 percent increase in the unemployment rate leads to a 3 percent to 4 percent increase in high-quality enlistment. Another study has suggested a 5 percent increase, Warner said.

In addition, many studies show that high education levels, AFQT scores and experience all correlate to productivity and flexibility in service. Experts say recruits with high school diplomas are much more likely to finish their first terms of service and perform higher-quality work.

Carr said the improvements were particularly remarkable given the increasing difficulty in finding qualified candidates for accession, with nearly three-quarters of today’s high school graduates going on to college, compared to 50 percent in the 1980s, Carr said.

Moreover, in the 1980s, one in 20 17-to-24-year-olds were considered obese by Centers for Disease Control standards; today, the ratio is one in four.

“That creates a tighter constraint as you seek to find fully qualified recruits,” Carr said, adding that the military has to attract more than 15 percent of qualified young Americans in order to maintain the force.

Waivers

That’s one reason why the number of waivers issued to potential recruits remains an issue. About one in five recruits still requires a waiver of some sort to enter the service because they don’t meet service standards, Carr said. Of those, two-thirds are for conduct and one-third are for medical issues.

Carr said waiver totals were lower in fiscal 2009 than the year before, but that precise fiscal 2009 figures won’t be available until the end of October.

Of the conduct waivers, 1 percent, or two per 1,000 recruits, were for felony convictions, he said. Four per thousand were arrested for a major misconduct offense, but were not found guilty or punished in any way, he said.

All such waivers require multiple reviews and general officer approval, Carr noted.

The Army led the way in fiscal 2009 recruiting, signing up 108 percent of its goal of 65,000 for a total of 70,045 new recruits. The other three services each came in at 100 percent: A total of 35,527 signed up with the Navy; 31,413 with the Marine Corps; and 31,983 with the Air Force. Overall, the Defense Department met 103 percent of its fiscal year goal.

That was outdone by the reserve branches, which collectively met 104 percent of their goal, according to the Pentagon. The top percentage producer was the Marine Corps Reserve, which signed up 8,805, which amounted to 122 percent of its goal. The Air Force Reserve brought in 8,604, or 109 percent of its goal.

The other reserve branch figures: 10,075 to the Air National Guard, or 106 percent of its goal; 36,189 to the Army Reserve, or 105 percent of its goal; 7,793 to the Navy Reserve, or 101 percent of its goal; and the Army National Guard, the numerical leader with 56,071 recruits, which equaled 100 percent of its goal.

Related reading

* Air Force Times: AF hits recruiting goal for 10th straight year

* Army Times: Army easily exceeds FY 2009 recruiting goals

* Marine Corps Times: Corps to ban recruits with prior sex offenses

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