FY 2009 Recruiting Sets Record

October 21, 2009
By Gerry J. Gilmore
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Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON - The military services’ active and reserve components notched record recruiting numbers and signed up the highest-quality recruits ever in fiscal 2009, said senior defense officials.

It is the first time that all active services and reserve components met or exceeded their numerical recruiting goals and exceeded their recruit-quality benchmarks since the start of the all-volunteer force in 1973, said Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy.

While Carr acknowledged that the current economic downturn probably is having a positive effect on recruiting, he also pointed to the sterling efforts of military recruiters for the superb results and noted the military deployed a robust bonus program in which 40 percent of recruits received an average bonus of $14,000.

The recruiting success achieved in fiscal 2009 is even more impressive, Carr said, considering that 70 percent of today’s high school graduates go on to college upon graduation.

Carr also attributed current recruiting success to the “Millennial” demographic of young people that includes those born between 1978 and 1996. Generational studies show, he said, that these young people - who’ve lived during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States - are more inclined to perform public service.

Additionally, Carr said, Congress continues to provide the Defense Department with sufficient funding to sustain the all-volunteer force.

Studies show that young people can make a good living in the military, Carr said, as compared to their civilian peers with equitable workplace experience and education qualifications. Generous pay raises provided to junior officers and mid-level non-commissioned officers in recent years, he noted, have boosted those servicemembers’ earning capacity.

“It has been a banner year for recruiting,” Curtis L. Gilroy, director of accession policy, told American Forces Press Service and Pentagon Channel reporters during an Oct. 9 interview at the Pentagon.

Gilroy directorate is a component of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Fiscal 2009’s crop of recruits also represents the best quality ever, Gilroy said, noting 96 percent of active-duty recruits and 95 percent of reserve-component recruits possessed a high school diploma. The Defense Department benchmark for recruits with high school diplomas is 90 percent. Studies show, he added, that 80 percent of servicemembers with high school diplomas complete their initial term of service.

Gilroy said 73 percent of active recruits and 72 percent of reserve-component recruits scored average or above average on the Armed Forces Qualification Test. The department sets a benchmark of 60 percent of all recruits scoring at or above the 50th percentile on the AFQT.

“As you can see from these numbers,” Gilroy said, “the services have far exceeded those benchmarks.” Increased capabilities demonstrated by the majority of the nearly 300,000 active and reserve component recruits signed up in fiscal 2009, he added, will result in higher performance in the field and will enhance readiness.