Army on Recruiting Woes: ‘We Are In a War for Talent’

The Army will shift more than $1 billion to recruiting programs and rely more on reserve-component soldiers as the active-component struggles to attract recruits, service officials said in a July 20 memo.

“America’s military faces the most challenging recruiting environment since the All-Volunteer Force was established in 1973,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth and Gen. James C. McConville, the Army chief of staff.

The numbers reflect the depth of the problem. Wormuth and McConville project active Army troop strength will be about 466,400 at the end of the fiscal year, significantly less than the budgeted 485,000.

And the total could drop as low as 445,000 soldiers by the end of fiscal 2023, they said, “barring a significant positive change in the current recruiting environment.”

Army leaders attribute the problems to the red-hot civilian job market and a declining number of young Americans interested in uniformed service.

“This is not a recruiter problem. This is an Army problem,” Wormuth and McConville said. “We are in a war for talent, and it will take all our people — soldiers across all components, families, Army civilians, and soldiers for life — to fight and win this war.”

Their memo listed a host of initiatives and programs to attract recruits and keep enlisted soldiers in the ranks. Officials noted they will have to make sweeping changes to the 2023 budget to address looming problems.

Wormuth and McConville said they will shift up to $1.2 billion from other Army programs to recruiting initiatives, retention bonuses and other efforts.

The pair also said “funding will be required to pay an increased number of mobilized Reserve Component Soldiers to meet operational demands.”