The Department of Defense needs an action plan to
address growing recruitment and retention challenges
for enlisted personnel, the Government Accountability
Office has said.
It said the department reports that over half of
today’s youth are unable to meet the military’s entry
standards for education, aptitude, health, moral
character, or other requirements.
DoD’s active, reserve, and National Guard components
met most aggregate recruiting and retention goals for
enlisted personnel from fiscal 2000 to 2004, but for
fiscal 2005, five of 10 components — the Army, Army
Reserve, Army National Guard, Air National Guard,
and Navy Reserve, all missed recruiting goals by 8
to 20 percent, according to GAO-06-134.
It said a drop in new recruits in delayed entry
programs and the practice of stop-loss — keeping
personnel in longer – could lead to further recruiting
difficulties.
From fiscal 2000 to 2005, all components went beyond
authorized personnel levels for 19 percent of 1,484
occupational specialties, and they were consistently
unable to fill 41 percent, GAO said, calling it a
systematic problem.
It said the department requires the active components
to report on critical occupational specialties for
recruiting and retention, but does not require them
to report on non-critical specialties.
As a result, DoD lacks the necessary information to
develop an effective plan to address the root causes
of the component’s recruiting and retention challenges,
and while it has taken steps to improve recruiting and
retention, it lacks the information on financial
incentives for certain occupational specialties,
according to GAO.
