The Navy is on track to meet its highest recruiting numbers in more than 20 years,
the service posted on X on Tuesday. The recruiting goals for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 are the same: 40,600 new sailors – the highest numbers in two decades. The Navy surpassed last year’s target with 40,978 recruits and it is expected to achieve that goal for a second consecutive year.
Between Oct. 1 and Jan. 31, the Navy contracted more than 14,000 future sailors, of which more than 12,750 were shipped to boot camp, said Navy spokesman Cmdr. Tim Hawkins.
By comparison, the Navy has contracted 4,000 more sailors and shipped 5,000 more sailors in the first four months of fiscal year 2025 than during the same time period last fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024, Hawkins said.
The Navy’s announcement on recruiting comes two weeks after U.S. Army Recruiting Command announced that Army recruiters had “
their most productive December in 15 years by enlisting 346 Soldiers daily,” after which, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed that the boost was due to the 2024 election.
As Task & Purpose previously reported, it’s not clear how much of an impact the election has had on recruiting, but the Army’s recruiting numbers were already on the rise prior to Trump’s return to office.
When asked what factors are driving Navy recruiting and if more people are enlisting in the Navy because of Trump’s election victory in November, Hawkins provided Task & Purpose with a statement: “Our recruiting gains are a direct result of the hard work and commitment of our Navy recruiters, support staff, and leadership.”
No other information was immediately available on the specific reasons why more Americans are enlisting in the Navy.
An apparent factor in the Navy’s success at meeting its fiscal year 2024 recruiting goal was the
Future Sailor Preparatory Course, which helps potential recruits meet the service’s academic and physical standards. Those recruits on the academic track receive help with math, reading, and test-taking skills, and those in the physical fitness track take part in structured physical training, nutrition education, and life skills.
For fiscal year 2024, a total of 1,921 recruits went through the physical fitness track and 3,451 went through the academic track, and 90% of all those recruits graduated from boot camp, Hawkins said. So far, the Future Sailor Preparatory Course has produced six Honor Graduates.
As of early February, 1,220 recruits have enrolled in the academic track and 249 in the fitness track,
the Navy told Task & Purpose for a previous story.
Experts have different opinions about why more Americans are joining the Navy.
Retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, who served as the Supreme Allied Commander at NATO from 2009 to 2013, said the Navy offers job stability amid a slowing economy and cuts to the federal workforce.
“People want the security of a job in the military,” Stavridis said. “As unemployment rises in the country, the military looks like a pretty good option to people.”
But
retired Navy Capt. Brent Sadler said the Navy’s ability to sign up more recruits reflects a wider trend in military recruiting advertisements that now emphasize the branch’s mission and appeal to Americans’ sense of patriotism and comradery.
“[The] Marine Corps never embraced the Biden administration’s identity politics in its recruiting and didn’t suffer, and the Army has in recent on this changed its advertising to a traditional message and too has seen steep positive improvement in its recruitment,” said Sadler, of the
Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, D.C. “Clearly people want to join a military that is focused on mission, competency, and patriotism.”
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