Reserve Components

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined enlisted personnel retention in the Selected Reserve, focusing on the causes and extent of personnel turnover and attrition.

GAO found that: (1) personnel losses in the Selected Reserve for fiscal year (FY) 1988 totalled 220,909, with attrition rates ranging from 11 percent of Air National Guard reservists to 30 percent of Army reservists; (2) transfers to individual ready reserve units made up the largest category of losses in the Selected Reserve; (3) while nonprior service personnel accounted for 42 percent of enlistments in FY 1988, they constituted 61 percent of overall losses in the Selected Service; (4) the loss of nonprior service reservists represented a direct cost to reserve components for recruitment and training; (5) although the Department of Defense (DOD) distinguished between losses to the total force and realignments within the force, all losses affected the Selected Reserve; (6) the lack of accurate information hampered DOD attrition management; (7) job conflicts, dissatisfaction with training and enlistment terms, and delayed receipt of reserve pay contributed to attrition; (8) mismatches between reservists' primary speciality and their duty specialty was strongly related to attrition; (9) DOD lacked a uniform policy for dealing with reservists who failed to honor their obligation to participate in training; and (10) DOD and various reserve components designed several initiatives to reduce attrition and improve reserve retention, but other opportunities existed to increase personnel retention.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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