Military Personnel

To deal with mounting problems in recruiting enough qualified enlisted personnel, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force have increased their number of recruiters and their advertising budget and have offered larger enlistment bonuses and more money for college. The military services have also used innovative ways to expand their recruiting market without sacrificing the quality of recruits, for example, by targeting persons attending community colleges and persons without high school degrees who meet other quality standards. Because so little time has passed since the services have begun to respond to their recent recruiting problems, they cannot yet assess the long-term success of their efforts. Also, the services do not yet know which of their new recruiting efforts work best. In addition to improving the screening of applicants before they enlist, the services have also tried to reduce the attrition of first-term enlistees while they are in training and after they have been assigned to their first duty stations. These efforts include paying extra attention to recruits struggling during basic training and disciplining and working with enlistees who have completed training and are experiencing minor behavioral problems. Although these actions appear promising, the latest attrition data show that first-term attrition has reached an all-time high for military enlistees.

GAO noted that: (1) to address problems in recruiting personnel, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force have increased their numbers of recruiters and their advertising budgets and have offered larger enlistment bonuses and more money for college; (2) these tools have been shown by past research to help the services attract new recruits; (3) the services have also sought innovative ways of expanding their recruiting market without reducing the quality of recruits, for example, by targeting persons attending community colleges and persons without high school degrees who meet other quality standards; (4) because so little time has passed since the services have begun to respond to their recent recruiting problems, they cannot yet assess the long-term success of their efforts; (5) also, the services do not yet know which of their new recruiting initiatives work best; (6) while each of the services might point to localized successes, the Department of Defense (DOD) does not know the extent to which the services might be competing with each other for the same potential recruits; (7) until sufficient time has passed and each of the services consistently meets its goal, DOD cannot be assured that individual service strategies will collectively enable DOD to meet its overall recruiting requirements; (8) in addition to improving the screening of applicants before they enlist, the services have also begun many efforts to reduce the attrition of first-term enlistees while they are in training and after they have been assigned to their first duty stations; (9) these efforts include providing extra attention to recruits struggling during basic training and disciplining and working with enlistees who have completed training and are experiencing minor behavioral problems; (10) the latest attrition data available indicate that first-term attrition has reached all-time highs for DOD enlistees; (11) the attrition rate for enlistees entering the services in the mid- to late 1980s hovered between 30 and 34 percent, and this rate gradually rose in the 1990s from a low of 33 percent to a peak of nearly 37 percent for enlistees entering the services in fiscal year 1994 and 1995; (12) greater success in reducing attrition may not yet be apparent because the services have just begun many of their efforts; and (13) the services, however, are not developing tools needed to measure the long-term success of their efforts, thus limiting their ability to judge the effectiveness of those efforts in reducing attrition.

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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