May 2022 — MHCE Newsletter

14 | MHCE - News www.mhce.us MAY 2022 EDITION
the program is being overwhelmed since classes are also available in live
online, on-demand or hybrid formats.
The urgency described by leaders who are putting their money toward
keeping skilled service members is a sign of the worry about a brain
drain.
Unlike the broader enlistment bonuses, many military career fields don't
offer cash for reenlistment, and some of these incentives existed prior to
the pandemic. But the job market has put pressure on the services to pay
up to keep service members in the force.
Overweight and Hard to Reach
The military's difficulties attracting recruits go far beyond making the
right bonus offer. The forces working against recruiting increased during
the grinding global pandemic -- lockdowns kept recruiters home and
young Americans are refusing vaccines, for example -- and are also rooted
in longer-term societal shifts in physical fitness and communication.
"The aggregate effects of two years of COVID is that is two years of
not being in high school classrooms, two years of not having air shows
and major public events like being in those public spaces, where our
potential applicants or potential recruits are getting personal exposure,
face-to-face relationships with military recruiters," Thomas said.
Only about 40% of Americans who are of prime recruiting age are
vaccinated against the virus. Outright refusal to get the shot immediately
precludes joining the force and short-circuits any pitch from recruiters.
COVID vaccines are among at least a dozen inoculations mandated by
the Defense Department.
"Seventeen-to-24-year-olds are not getting vaccinated, and those [are]
people we aren't having a conversation with," Vereen said.
Even when potential recruits are interested and big bonuses motivate
them to sign on the dotted line, only about 23% of young Americans are
even eligible for service.
Past legal run-ins or a drug history prevent potential recruits from
joining, and more and more Americans are overweight. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40% of adults aged 20 to
39 are obese. That problem has been deemed a national security risk by
somebecause it causes an increasingly shallow pool of potential recruits.
The confluence of challenges has others loudly alerting the public that
there's a problem.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., the ranking member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee personnel panel, says the military is on the cusp of
a recruiting crisis.
"To put it bluntly, I am worried we are now in the early days of a longterm
threat to the all-volunteer force. [There is] a small and declining
number of Americans who are eligible and interested in military service,"
Tillis said during an April 27 hearing.
He added that "every single metric tracking the military recruiting
environment is going in the wrong direction." Just 8% of young
Americans have seriously considered joining the military, while only
23% are eligible to enlist, according to Tillis.
Meanwhile, the prime demographic for recruiting -- 17-to-24-year-olds
-- is getting harder to reach. The military is running high production
value recruiting ads on TV, but most younger Americans are watching
YouTube, Twitch and other streaming services. On those platforms,
ads are dictated by algorithms based on a person's search history, and
prime-age viewers may never be exposed to recruiting spots if they don't
already have a general interest in the military.
The military has relied on Facebook, with its user base that skews
much older, and Instagram pointing users to ads based on their existing
interests. The Defense Department banned TikTok from governmentissued
phones in 2019, shutting out Generation Z's social media platform
of choice. However, some recruiters have ignored the ban on the Chineseowned
platform, which is seen by some as a security risk.
"I know a lot of young people are on TikTok and we're not," Vereen said.
When the military does get widespread exposure and makes the news, it
can be due to scandals such as the slaying of Guillén at Fort Hood, Texas,
or other problems that raise questions about safety and the quality of life
in the services.
Following a wave of suicides and disclosure of a lack of basic ameneties
such as hot water and ventilation aboard the George Washington, Master
Chief Petty Officer Russell Smith, the Navy's top enlisted leader, was
asked by a sailor why the service was spending so much on new recruits,
specifically mentioning the hefty $25,000 bonus.
"I gotta use those bonuses to compel something. ... A post-COVID
workforce doesn't love the idea that they have to, they actually have to
go to work, talk to people, see them face-to-face, exchange ideas and
do work," Smith told the crew, according to a Navy-provided transcript.
"They would rather phone it in or work from home somehow and, with
the military, you just can't do that."
Some sailors said it didn't seem like the service was prioritizing making
its current ranks happy or financially incentivizing them to stick around.
Smith said the Navy already offers some bonuses to in-demand specialties
and that if a particular job doesn't offer one it's because enough of those
sailors "love the work that they do ... and when they do, I don't have to
use money as leverage."
Smith also told the sailor that he "can compel [them] to stay right here for
eight years." Most contracts have an inactive period of reserve service
built in following the end of active duty that the Navy can tap into.
"So, you want me finding sailors to come in and relieve you on time,"
Smith added.
The military services hope the new bonuses will overcome all the
difficulties and that they will meet recruiting goals for the year. But the
numbers are not encouraging so far.
The Army has an uphill climb for the rest of the year, having recruited
just 23% of its target in the first five months of the fiscal year.
The Navy said that, in order to reach its recruiting goal this year, it will
have to reduce the delayed-entry program -- allowing someone to enlist
before they plan on actually shipping out -- to below "historic norms,"
which could in turn cause recruiting issues in future years.
There's likely no relief in sight, according to experts.
U.S. population demographics are going in the wrong direction and will
make the recruiting job increasingly hard. The millennial and Gen-Z
generations are smaller than previous generations, meaning there is a
dwindling workforce to pull from. And only a small percentage of those
youths appear likely to meet the physical qualifications to join in the first
place.
"I think it's likely that the labor shortage is going to be long-lasting," Von
Nessen said. "This is not a short-term phenomenon. It was exacerbated
by the pandemic, but it wasn't created by the pandemic exclusively."