U.S. Army recruitment is “going like gangbusters,” with an expected 81,000 new people expected to sign up, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said this week.
Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. Army for comment via email on Friday morning.
Why It Matters
The U.S. Army is poised to hit its 2025 enlistment targets, a significant rebound for a service that has faced years of recruitment struggles and recently overhauled its approach to attracting young recruits.
For the past decade, the military as a whole has faced an uphill battle in recruiting, squeezed by a shrinking unemployment rate and intensified competition from private sector employers offering higher salaries and comparable or superior benefits.
The Army hit its recruitment target of 55,000 for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, while also replenishing its delayed entry pool. Roughly 24 percent of new recruits came through the service’s prep course, a figure Wormuth expects to rise to 30 percent this year.
What to Know
Wormuth told the Associated Press that the service is on track to recruit 61,000 new soldiers by the end of the fiscal year in September, with more than 20,000 additional recruits already committed through the delayed entry program for 2026. This marks the second consecutive year the Army has met its enlistment goals.
Wormuth, who has led the Army for four years and navigated a recruitment crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, dismissed claims that the service has become “woke,” calling such criticisms unfounded.
The term “woke” has been used by critics to argue that the military is overly focused on diversity and equity initiatives. Some Republicans have pointed to this as a factor in the Army’s recruiting challenges—a claim echoed by President-elect Donald Trump‘s defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, during his confirmation hearing this week.
During his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Hegseth told lawmakers that service members would welcome the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back these initiatives.
“We’ve already seen it in recruiting numbers,” Hegseth said. “There’s already been a surge since President Trump won the election.”
While speaking with the AP this week, Wormuth said, “What’s really remarkable is the first quarter contracts that we have signed are the highest rate in the last 10 years…We are going like gangbusters, which is terrific.”
She added: “Concerns about the Army being, quote, woke, have not been a significant issue in our recruiting crisis. 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.”
Wormuth acknowledged that recent data shows a slight decline in enlistments among white men, a trend highlighted by Hegseth. She suggested that ongoing criticism of the military as “woke” could be contributing to the drop.
“Any time an institution is being inaccurately criticized and demeaned, it’s going to make it harder to recruit. And I think that is what we have seen,” she said. “In terms of ‘is the Army woke’—which I will take to mean focused on things that don’t make us more lethal or effective or better able to defend this nation—I would say the Army is absolutely not woke.”
The Army’s Recent Recruiting Gains
Army data shows that recruitment has been steadily rising over the past year, peaking in August 2024—months before the November election. Officials closely monitor these figures as part of ongoing efforts to strengthen enlistment.
A key factor behind the Army’s recent recruiting gains is the Future Soldier Prep Course, launched in August 2022 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. The program provides lower-performing recruits with up to 90 days of academic and fitness training, helping them meet enlistment standards before advancing to basic training.
Only 23 percent of young adults meet the military’s physical, mental, and moral standards for enlistment without requiring a waiver. Disqualifying factors range from drug use and criminal records to gang affiliations. The challenge was compounded by the pandemic, which disrupted recruitment by shutting down enlistment stations and limiting the military’s traditional outreach efforts in schools and public events.
The Army faced a severe recruitment shortfall in 2022, missing its 60,000-enlistment target by 15,000. The following year, the service recruited just over 50,000 new soldiers—well below its ambitious goal of 65,000.
In 2023, the Navy and Air Force fell short of their recruitment targets, while the Marine Corps and the Space Force—by far the smallest branch—continued to meet their enlistment goals.
What People Are Saying
Retired Major General Dennis Laich, who served 35 years in the Army Reserve, in a 2024 Newsweek op-ed wrote: “The U.S. military is in a crisis. Through the second month of FY2024, active Army and Navy recruitment fell 30-40 percent short of recruiting goals. Army Reserves, Navy Reserves, and Air National Guard recruitment fell by 20 percent or more.”
He added: “These numbers are a continuation of a grim trend. Over the last decade, the propensity to serve has declined from 15 percent to 9 percent, while the proportion of recruiting-age Americans qualified for service has fallen from 30 percent to 23 percent. There is a growing disconnect between servicemembers and civilian society, as less than 1 percent of Americans actively serve and the number of living veterans could decrease by upwards of 34 percent over the next 25 years.”
What Happens Next
Hegseth has pledged to purge what he calls “woke” programs and personnel from the military.
This article includes reporting from the Associated Press.
The post Army Recruitment ‘Going Like Gangbusters,’ 81K Set to Join Up appeared first on Newsweek.
