US Army sets ambitious new recruiting goal following years of struggle 

The U.S. Army is aiming to recruit 61,000 new soldiers in the coming year, an ambitious goal that is building off of the service surpassing its goal with 55,000 new recruits in fiscal 2024 after several dismal recruiting years, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth announced Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference.

The Army recruited 55,000 new soldiers in FY24.

The service’s Delayed Entry Program goal for FY25 is 10,000, which is twice the number as FY24, Wormuth said. The delayed entry program allows enlistees to sign up but leave for initial training later, often so that they can complete high school or college.

“This goal is ambitious but we believe it is achievable,” she said.

The Army hitting its target represents a reversal of recent years, where the Army and other services struggled to overcome restrictions on in-person recruiting mandated by the COVID-19 pandemic, a low unemployment rate and stiff competition from private companies able to pay higher salaries and provide similar or better benefits.

Even so, Wormuth warned in September as the numbers became finalized that “the headwinds that we’ve been facing are not going to stop blowing.”

An expected drop of about 10% in the number of college-age young people nationwide in 2026 is a significant concern, Wormuth said. The dip comes 18 years after the financial recession in 2008, which triggered a decrease in the number of children born.

The Army conducted a major overhaul of its recruiting efforts last year, adding dedicated enlisted and warrant officer job positions, extending recruiter training by two weeks and using artificial intelligence to help comb through prospective recruit data. The AI tool is being provided by Deloitte, a professional services provider, in five U.S. cities to better target individuals who might be interested in service.

The service is also restructuring how it manages a variety of commands, adding a digital dashboard of key recruiting metrics and moving as many as 40 physical locations to better areas to attract recruit attention.

The Future Soldier Prep Course, a pre-basic training program that helps get prospective recruits up to physical and academic standards within 90 days, has seen more than 28,000 individuals complete the prep and basic training since its inception in 2022. That has resulted in a 90% graduation rate for prep course attendees.

Last fiscal year, the Army also saw more than 13,000 prep course graduates move on to basic training from all components total – active, reserve and Guard, according to Brig. Gen. Jennifer Walkawicz, deputy chief of staff for the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.

That provided 25% of the total new recruits this year, which helped fill the shortfall that the Army might have otherwise faced if it had not been able to rely on the prep course.