CAMARILLO: RECRUITING REMAINS ‘EXISTENTIAL CHALLENGE’
Soldiers recruting
Photo by: U.S. Army/Sgt. Alex Romey
Fri, 12/22/2023 - 07:20
Despite missing its recruiting goal in fiscal 2023, the Army is making progress in tackling what service leaders have called an “existential challenge,” Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo said.
“Recruiting is an existential challenge for our warfighters and for our Army,” he said. If the Army can’t recruit the talent it needs, the service will face “significant issues and problems,” particularly as it transforms for the future and contends with growing threats around the world, he said.
In fiscal 2023, the Army missed its recruiting goal of 65,000 new soldiers by about 10,000. Leaders have called it a “stretch goal,” and the target for fiscal 2024, which began Oct. 1, is about 55,000 new soldiers, Camarillo said. “It’s still a stretch goal, but it’s still one that we’re going to set for ourselves,” Camarillo said, adding that “the Army is smaller than we’d like for it to be,” and Army recruiters deserve “a lot of credit” for what they accomplished this past year.
The recruiting challenge faced by the Army and the other services was “many years in the making,” Camarillo said during a panel discussion at the recent Reagan National Defense Forum hosted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
https://www.ausa.org/news/camarillo-recruiting-remains-existential-challenge
