To keep recruiting up, US military spends more
More than $16,000 was spent per recruit in 2005 on bonuses and other expenses. The Army in particular is paying more.
from the April 12, 2007 edition
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The service has used with some success a program that pays civilians up to $2,000 for referring someone to join the Army. It has enlisted more than 1,300 people that way. The Army also increased its enlistment bonus from $20,000 to $40,000.
Bonuses are working for the Army, says Gilroy of the Defense Department. "They're using bonuses a lot," he says. "That has increased the average cost of a recruit."
In fiscal year 2006, the Army paid $18,327 in costs per accession, or enlistee. Although this year it expects to pay $16,834 per accession, it projects to have to pay $18,842 per recruit during fiscal 2008, which begins in October.
The Marine Corps, which is smaller than the Army and has culturally shied away from paying enlistment bonuses, is also paying slightly more to recruit. While it is paying about $7,900 this year per accession, it expects to have to pay about $10,850 in fiscal year 2008, according to Defense Department data. (However, these per-recruit costs for both the Army and Marine Corps do not reflect the supplemental military budget, which has been funding most war costs. When they are factored in, the per-recruit costs will increase even more, Defense officials say.)
Yet the Army appears to be keeping it together. "They've certainly had their problems, and it may be that things will get much worse in coming years," says Steven Kosiak, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a think tank in Washington. But, he says, "recruiting and retention has in some ways been remarkably good."
Despite all the money spent on incentives and advertising, the Army's best bet may be to simply increase the number of recruiters on the street, the separate CBO study concluded.
A 10 percent increase in advertising expenditures and enlistment bonuses or educational benefits would increase enlistments by only about 1 percent, the CBO study estimated. Meanwhile, a 10 percent increase in the number of recruiters would yield a 4 to 6 percent increase in the number of enlistments – a much bigger bang for the dollar, the study said.
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