The correlation is historically accurate and significant.

After 2009, recruiting conditions improved. The economy stalled as a result of the Great Recession that began in fall 2008, thereby improving the attractiveness of Army service relative to recruits’ opportunities in the civilian workplace. Research shows an increase in high-quality enlistments when the unemployment rate rises (Asch et al., 2010; Knapp et al., 2018). The strong relationship between the strength of the economy and high-quality recruits is shown in Figure 4.7 In addition, the number of Army deployments fell markedly after 2010, and the Army accession mission began to decline as did the overall enlisted force size. Military pay, as measured by regular military compensation (RMC), was also relatively constant from 2010 to 2016 (Hosek et al., 2018).

<<Figure 3 Omitted>>

<<Figure 4 Omitted>>

The Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps responded to the improved recruiting conditions in 2009 by increasing recruit quality and specifically the percentage of recruits who are scored as AFQT Categories I–IIIA (Figure 5), sustaining percentages that exceeded 70 percent Categories I–IIIA through 2016. U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) guidelines are that 60 percent of recruits are AFQT Categories I–IIIA and 90 percent are Tier 1. The other services well exceeded the DoD guideline after 2009.

In contrast, the Army responded to the improved recruiting conditions by cutting resources and chose to reduce the percentage of recruits in AFQT Categories I–IIIA down to the 60 percent DoD guideline. Knapp et al. (2018) show that the percentage of Army recruits receiving bonuses, average bonus amounts, and Army advertising expenditures dropped dramatically in 2009. Furthermore, Army-enlisted recruits with prior military service (Figure 2, right) and those receiving medical or conduct waivers dropped considerably in 2009 compared with 2008. The Army also increased Tier 1 recruits dramatically in 2009 (Figure 2, left) and kept the percentage Tier 1 at or above 90 percent thereafter. Even with fewer recruiting resources, the Army met its overall accession mission between 2009 and 2017 and even substantially exceeded it in 2010 and 2012.

The Army’s differing strategy when recruiting conditions improved suggested that the Army focused on reducing recruiting costs while achieving its overall recruiting mission and meeting DoD benchmarks of 90 percent Tier 1 and 60 percent AFQT Categories I–IIIA recruits. The other services focused on achieving their overall mission while increasing recruit quality above the benchmarks. The different strategies raise the question of what level of recruit quality is appropriate: Are the DoD benchmarks still relevant, should recruit quality increase, or should recruiting costs decrease when recruiting conditions improve? Put differently, how should the services, and the Army specifically, reap the benefits of a less-challenging recruiting market? The Army’s approach would be more appropriate than the other services if the DoD benchmarks are still relevant. On the other hand, if higher recruit quality is required, increasing the higher recruit quality produced by the other services would be more appropriate, although as discussed in more detail in the following section, research shows that increasing resources other than military pay might be a more cost-effective means of increasing recruit quality.

Recruiting has become more challenging in recent years, however. The Army’s total recruiting mission has increased from 57,000 in 2014 to 76,500 in 2018. Furthermore, the economy has dramatically improved. The adult unemployment rate reached a high of 9.6 percent in 2010, but, by 2014, had fallen to 7.4 percent, as shown in Figure 4. In June 2019, adult unemployment was 3.7 percent. As mentioned earlier, research shows that Army high-quality recruits fall, given no other changes, when the economy improves. Tools developed at the RAND Corporation (discussed in the following section), such as the Recruiting Resource Model (RRM), can help the Army assess the relative efficiency of different resource mixes when conditions such as the strength of the economy are changing.