The Navy was the last service to announce that it expects to meet its recruiting target by the end of September, a switch from April when leaders told Congress that the service did not expect to meet its goals this year.
Navy Vice Adm. Rick Cheeseman told the Associated Press that the upturn in recruiting came so late in the year that the Navy didn’t expect to be able to get the last 5,000 sailors through bootcamp by the end of the fiscal year. The Navy set a goal of recruiting 40,600 sailors this year.
Like the other services, the Navy has offered retention bonus and other incentives to help close the gap. The Navy also followed the Army’s lead and created a remediation program for recruits with lower test scores. The service also lowered its testing standards.
Two years ago, the Navy also set up a recruiting command specifically to go after former sailors to encourage them to join the Navy Reserve.
The recruiting pinch left ships undermanned throughout the fleet. A General Accounting Office released a report in April that highlighted undermanning on board ships like the Norfolk-based USS George Washington. To fill the gap, the aircraft carrier assigned more junior sailors to fill jobs as supervisors and other senior leaders.
The report said the practice is commonplace in the Navy and contributed to two separate collisions of Navy ships in 2017.
