Air Force On Track To Smash Recruiting Target Ahead Of Schedule

The Air Force is on track to hit its annual recruitment goal three months early, Chief Master Sgt. Frank Rawls, the chief recruiter for the branch, told Military.com on Tuesday.

Although budget woes caused the Air Force to slightly revise down their recruitment goals for this year, the branch is still projected to meet their target of 29,950 new active-duty airmen by the end of June, three months ahead of schedule, Rawls told Military.com. Other service branches — including the U.S. Army — have also seen an upswing in recruitment after struggling to find new blood as former President Joe Biden’s administration’s left-wingpolicies dissuaded potential recruits from joining up during his tenure.

Rawls told Military.com that the service is currently “96%” of the way to its recruitment goal.

The Air Force is still projected to surpass its original, more ambitious goal of 32,500 airmen for this fiscal year, but the force lowered the goal to its current level due to constraints from the budget reconciliation process in Congress.

“We suffered a recruiting setback due to the yearlong continuing resolution and subsequent reduction of nearly half a billion dollars in our military personnel account,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said during a June 5 House hearing. “This will result in our inability to fund the recruitment of 3,000 Americans who want to join our Air Force.”