https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jun/21/recruiting-crisis-worsens-military-finds-competiti/
The U.S. military is in a bitter fight to attract and retain recruits, and its most potent enemies are around every corner.
“It’s Wendy’s. It’s Carl’s Jr. It’s every single job that a young person can go up against because now they are offering the same incentives we are offering. That’s our competition right now,” said Army Command Sgt. Maj. Marco Irenze, the head of the Nevada Army National Guard recruiting and retention battalion.
Maj. Irenze and other National Guard officials briefed reporters Wednesday on the recruiting crisis confronting America’s armed forces. Guard and active-duty service leaders say they face one the worst recruiting environments in the 50-year history of the country’s experiment with an all-volunteer force.
With the exception of the Marine Corps, each service expects to fall short of its recruiting goals in fiscal 2023. The Army expects to be about 10,000 soldiers short of its recruiting goal, service officials told Congress in April. The Navy is on track to be about 6,000 short. The Air Force will miss its mark by about 10,000, officials said.
The Army, Navy and Air Force offer enlistment bonuses to entice recruits. Incentives that once made military service attractive are now matched by private-sector employers equally desperate to fill job vacancies.
“We used to be the sole entity … that said, ‘Hey, we’ll pay for your college,’” Sgt. Maj. John Foley of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command recently told the Military Times. “Now lots of organizations, lots of companies out there are doing the same.”
The crisis has extended to National Guard units, where officials describe a brutal competition against private-sector companies pulling out all the stops to attract workers as the economy struggles to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic.