Air Force recruiting is in the toilet and senior leaders are freaking out
"Houston, we have a problem.”
By David Roza | Published Jan 12, 2022 9:59 AM
Between the COVID-19 pandemic, a low number of eligible recruits and a low unemployment rate, the Air Force recruiting service will have a tough time hitting its goals for fiscal year 2022, Maj. Gen. Edward Thomas Jr. said in a memo leaked to social media on Monday.
Specifically, the number of people on the Air Force’s ‘Qualified and Waiting’ list, the list of recruits waiting for a spot in a certain career field to open up, “is about half of what it has historically been,” Thomas wrote in the memo, which was posted to the popular Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco. The “lead conversion,” the rate at which interested possible recruits actually sign the dotted line, is also down, Thomas said.
In fact, the Air Force is in such a pickle that Thomas compared the situation to Apollo 13, the 1970 NASA mission where three astronauts nearly died on their way to the moon after an oxygen tank in their ship failed.
“‘Houston, we have a problem,’” Thomas wrote. “Not unlike Apollo 13, we have some mission challenges across Air Force recruiting, [regular Air Force], Guard and Reserve, that we didn’t see coming.”
Overcoming those issues “will require large measures of teamwork, innovation and hard work,” he added.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-recruiting-service-2022/
