Machinist Mate 2nd Class Jennifer Andujar adjusts a recruit’s cover during Navy Recruit Training Command’s Pass in Review in Great Lakes, Ill., on Feb. 06, 2025. (Christopher M. O’Grady/U.S. Navy)
WASHINGTON — The Navy is on track to meet its recruiting goal for the second consecutive year, the service announced Tuesday, just four months into fiscal 2025.
The sea service has contracted about 14,000 recruits since October, according to a post shared by the Navy to the social media site X. Of those, more than 12,700 have shipped out to Great Lakes, Ill., for the service’s basic training program, according to an official.
The recruits mark significant progress in the service’s effort to recruit 40,600 new sailors by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. If the Navy achieves the goal, it would be the second consecutive year that the service has met its highest recruiting goal in 20 years.
“Bravo Zulu to [the Navy] for their continued improvement in recruiting numbers and welcoming the next generation of warfighters serving with honor, courage and commitment,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a message shared Wednesday to X.
Typically, the service begins sharing its recruiting data closer to the end of the fiscal year — in late summer or early fall. But the Navy took to social media this week to tout the near 35% milestone.
In August, Navy officials said they were seeing significant results in recruiting after years of loosening requirements to combat missed enlistment goals. The Navy ultimately contracted 40,978 recruits from October 2023 to September 2024, surpassing its goal of 40,600.
The service set its recruiting goal of active-duty sailors for fiscal 2024 to attempt to make up for shortfalls from previous years. In 2022 and 2023, the Navy only contracted 22,000 and 30,000 sailors, respectively. Those same years, the Navy also emptied its delayed-entry pool, a program that allows people to sign up for the armed forces up to one year before they start basic training.
The Navy’s announcement comes about one month after the Army touted its recruiting success.
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told The Associated Press in January that the Army is on pace to bring in 61,000 recruits by the end of the fiscal year in September and will have more than 20,000 additional young people signed up in the delayed entry program for 2026. It’s the second consecutive year of meeting the goals.
In total, by Sept. 30, the services recruited about 225,000 new troops — about 25,000 more than the previous year.
