The Navy is on track to meet its highest recruiting numbers in more than 20 years, the service posted on X on Tuesday. The recruiting goals for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 are the same: 40,600 new sailors – the highest numbers in two decades. The Navy surpassed last year’s target with 40,978 recruits and it is expected to achieve that goal for a second consecutive year.
Between Oct. 1 and Jan. 31, the Navy contracted more than 14,000 future sailors, of which more than 12,750 were shipped to boot camp, said Navy spokesman Cmdr. Tim Hawkins.
By comparison, the Navy has contracted 4,000 more sailors and shipped 5,000 more sailors in the first four months of fiscal year 2025 than during the same time period last fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024, Hawkins said.
The Navy’s announcement on recruiting comes two weeks after U.S. Army Recruiting Command announced that Army recruiters had “their most productive December in 15 years by enlisting 346 Soldiers daily,” after which, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed that the boost was due to the 2024 election. As Task & Purpose previously reported, it’s not clear how much of an impact the election has had on recruiting, but the Army’s recruiting numbers were already on the rise prior to Trump’s return to office.
