Army secretary outlines new plan to attract soldiers amid recruiting struggles

Nick Schifrin:

The United States Army has not met its recruitment goals since 2014. For the fiscal year that just ended, the Army fell short of its 65,000 goal by 15,000.

For months, Army leadership has been studying the problem of how to staff an all-volunteer Army and, this week, unveiled their new plan.

To discuss that, we turn to Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.

Thank you very much. Welcome to the "NewsHour."

One of your big initiatives is to recruit college students and graduates for the enlisted ranks, rather than for officers. By 2028, you want one-third of new recruits to have more than a high school education, up from one-fifth. Why?

Christine Wormuth, Secretary of the U.S. Army: Well, frankly, it's, that's where the labor market is, Nick.

And I wouldn't say we're so much focusing on college graduates. We're looking at folks with some college. We're looking at folks who maybe have graduated from community college. There may well be college graduates who also want to join the Army, but what we have recognized through this work we have done is that only 15 to 20 percent of the labor market are just high school graduates, so we need to fish in a bigger pond.

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