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Army recruiters extended on assignment as branch struggles to fill ranks
By Jamie Goldstein
June 13, 2022

Army recruiters are being involuntarily extended on their assignments as every branch continues to fall short of their recruitment goals.

This month, U.S. Army Recruiting Command sent an internal memo communicating that the element will not be able to to accomplish its current mission of recruiting 60,000 active duty troops by the end of the fiscal year this October, without extending Army recruiters involuntarily.

According to Army Recruiting Command spokesperson, Brian McGovern, the Army has 267 “high performing” recruiters identified who will be extended on their current recruiting assignment involuntarily. This detachment is of the 5,319 current active-duty Army recruiters.

In a statement to Military.com, McGovern said “Based on the current challenges we face, the recruiting mission for Fiscal Year 2022 led to the decision to extend selected Recruiting NCOs through both the conclusion of the Fiscal Year 2022 mission and into the initial months of the Fiscal Year 2023 mission, in order to develop momentum going into the next accessions mission cycle.”

The military as a whole is struggling to hit their recruitment goals. The Department of Defense attributes this to both a highly competitive labor market and an inability to incentivize Generation Z to join the military. Additionally, only approximately 25% of military aged citizens are mentally, physically, psychologically, and administratively qualified to serve.

In an effort to connect with today’s American youth, Army leadership orchestrated an event this past weekend with current social media influencers in the greater D.C. area. Most of these influencers occupy the fitness vertical which is valuable to the military considering that their current followers are more likely to be physically qualified for service. The influencers are currently scheduled to meet with Army public affairs leadership as well as Sergeant Major of the Army Michael.

This large scale, branch level initiative follows smaller, unit based efforts to communicate more effectively on social media. Examples of this include the South Dakota National Guard who uses comedy and irreverence to recruit, and the New Jersey Air National Guard whose social media is run by Pop Smoke Media.

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