Air Force meets recruiting targets, aims for 20% increase by 2025

The Air Force said Monday it will meet its recruiting goals in fiscal 2024, a year after all components of the service missed their target for the first time in decades.

And the Air Force is setting an even more ambitious recruitment target for 2025.

Air Force Recruiting Service commander Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein told reporters during a roundtable that the service will meet its goal of 27,100 nonmilitary recruits this year. And next year, he said, the active-duty Air Force wants to recruit 32,500 new airmen, a 20 percent increase.

“The Department of the Air Force is always hiring,” Amrhein said this week at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Space Cyber ​​conference just outside Washington.

Amrhein acknowledged that the 2025 target will be difficult to achieve, particularly as the air force faces competition from young talent in the private sector. But he expressed confidence that the military can meet its 2025 goal, in part by adding 377 more personnel to its recruiting ranks.

Before the expansion began, the Air Force had 1,390 recruiters, he said. Some of the 377 airmen the recruiting service will recruit will focus on special warfare personnel, while others will serve in support roles, he said.

The first 80 of these new recruiters have already completed their training and are in the field, Amrhein added, and 20 more will arrive in November and December.

This time last year, the air force had about 8,800 new recruits waiting to be sent for basic training, Amrhein said. That number has now risen to 11,000, a sign that the air force’s recruiting is healthier and more likely to reach its higher target in 2025, he added.

Many of the new recruiters will be deployed to the southern United States, he said, but a few will be assigned to positions in Europe and the Pacific. In addition, some will be part of a new concept called agile recruiting cells.

These cells will be made up of two or three recruiters and assigned to squadron headquarters, he said, where they can follow leads or be temporarily sent to areas that need more recruiters.

Amrhein noted that a series of changes to recruiting processes — including the reinstatement of the military college loan repayment program, an expedited naturalization program, greater use of medical waivers and more lenient policies on tattoos and marijuana — helped the service reach its goal this year.

But these changes do not mean the Air Force has lowered its standards or recruited less qualified recruits, he added.

In January, the Air Force also reduced the length of time noncitizens must hold a green card — from 10 to two years — before they can enlist, Amrhein said. That change, combined with an accelerated naturalization program during basic military training, has expanded the pool of highly qualified people, he said.

“We had 1,400 people who were granted accelerated naturalization” during basic training, Amrhein added.

In 2025, the Air Force wants to further expand opportunities for airmen who are about to become U.S. citizens, he said. The Air Force is considering allowing recruits with green cards to be selected under certain conditions for jobs that are typically open only to U.S. citizens. Those recruits would then be able to move into their jobs once they become naturalized, Amrhein said.

The military has also relaxed its requirements for how long new recruits must stop taking medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and reduced the medical screenings that take place for recruits who suffered from asthma as children, he said.

Amrhein said the Air Force began working with the Civil Air Patrol this year to strengthen its recruiting network and encourage more young people to join.