(WASHINGTON) -- The U.S. Army met its annual recruiting target of 61,000 in the first week of June, four months ahead of the scheduled Sept. 30 deadline, after putting in place new initiatives to boost recruitment.
It marks a stunning turnaround for a service that failed to meet its recruiting goals in 2022 and 2023 and struggled in the years since to meet its annual targets.
"The U.S. Army has successfully met its fiscal year 2025 recruiting goals for active duty, signing contracts with more than 61,000 future Soldiers -- a full four months before the end of the fiscal year," the U.S. Army said in a statement. "This achievement represents a significant turning point for the Army and indicates a renewed sense of patriotism and purpose among America's youth."
Dan Driscoll, the secretary of the Army, said in a statement that he is "incredibly proud" of the service's recruiters and drill sergeants.
"Their colossal efforts and dedication to duty helped the U.S. Army accomplish our FY25 annual recruiting goal a full four months ahead of schedule," Driscoll added. "The U.S. Army is focused on lethality, taking care of our Soldiers, and transforming for a dangerous future -- young people across the country want to be part of the U.S. Army, and these results clearly demonstrate that."
The fiscal 2025 recruiting target was 10% higher than the 55,000 recruits targeted in fiscal 2024, and the Army statement added that "recent recruiting momentum has seen average contracts per day exceeding last year's levels by as much as 56% during the same period."
This is the first time since June 2014 that the Army has met its annual recruiting goal so early. The Army said recruiting efforts will continue and that additional recruits will be placed in the Delayed Entry Program in which recruits delay their start dates so the Army can begin the following recruiting year with recruits in hand.
The Army's surge in recruitment numbers parallels the recruiting surge the other military services are experiencing, something that both President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have attributed to a change in attitude brought about by the Trump administration's end of policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
However, the services' recruiting turnarounds began last year before the November election following the implementation of new initiatives to help boost recruiting. The Army's recruiting turnaround is being attributed to the establishment of an academic and physical fitness preparatory course for potential recruits, the professionalization of the recruiting force and an increase in recruiting bonuses.
In an interview with the Associated Press in January, then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said the Army was on pace to meet its target of 61,000 for the year as well as have more than 20,000 additional young people signed up for the DEP.
"Concerns about the Army being, quote, woke, have not been a significant issue in our recruiting crisis," she said. "They weren't at the beginning of the crisis. They weren't in the middle of the crisis. They aren't now. The data does not show that young Americans don't want to join the Army because they think the army is woke -- however they define that."
Instead, Instead the Army’s recruiting success was a result of new initiatives, such as the Army's Future Soldier Preparatory Course established in August 2022 that provided 1 in every 4 of Army recruits among the 55,000 who signed up for Army service in 2024. In the interview with the Associated Press, Wormuth said data showed the course might account for as much as a third of this year's recruiting totals.
The program was established following the Army's failure to meet its recruiting goals in 2022 and 2023 as a recognition that the Army was turning away potential recruits who had a strong desire to serve in the U.S. military but fell just short of meeting their academic and physical fitness requirements.
Potential recruits who did not meet those requirements were sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for up to 90 days for academic and physical fitness training to help them get ready for a new round of testing so they could become recruits.
The Army's success with the program in 2024 was reflected not only in successfully meeting that year's goal but also in placing 14,000 recruits in the DEP. The Navy has replicated the Army's preparatory course and implemented its own training system for potential recruits who initially fall short.
The Army is also moving away from rotating soldiers into assignments as recruiters and professionalizing the career field so it includes those who are motivated to stay in the field.
Recruiting bonuses have been a key way of incentivizing service members to join the military for the last two decades, and those numbers rose significantly during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan particularly to meet in-demand work specialties.
The Army lists recruiting bonuses that could total as much as $50,000 for eligible recruits who would enlist for hard-to-fill jobs and for meeting certain criteria, according to the Army's recruiting site.
Statistics for this recruiting year are not yet available, but Army statistics from 2024 show that " 24,185 recruits received an average bonus of $16.9K."
Those same statistics show that since 2020, the Army's annual recruiting class has become increasingly diverse, with more minorities joining the active duty service since then and the number of women rising to pre-2020 levels.
For example, the number of white recruits in fiscal 2024 decreased to 40.5% from the 52.7% who joined in 2020 while the number of Black and Hispanic recruits increased.
That trend was reflected in 2024's total recruiting effort, where 26.1% of recruits were Hispanic, the highest number ever, and the number of Black recruits increased by 6% over the previous year to 25.8% of the total.
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