Military recruits fatter, less educated: audit
Decrease in applicants resulting in lowered acceptance standards
Canada’s military is having to accept new recruits who are fatter, less educated and harder to motivate than previous generations because quality applicants are in dwindling supply, an internal Defence Department audit has concluded.
Despite an end to combat operations in Afghanistan and deep budget cuts, officials say the military needs more than 4,000 new recruits each year to offset attrition and keep 68,000 full-time troops in uniform.
According to the audit conducted last year but only recently made public, Canadian military recruiters are expected “to encourage dedicated individuals, who are mentally and physically fit, towards military service as a career of choice.”
However, the department’s auditors found that “recently, this has been an increasingly difficult challenge.”
The Canadian Forces has historically drawn heavily on young, white males from rural communities to fill its ranks, but the auditors cited recent census data showing that “traditional pool” has been steadily shrinking.
“Factors such as increased levels of education, an aging workforce, a labour pool increasingly made up of immigrants, and the changing expectations regarding the nature of work among the 17- to 29-year-olds have also been contributing to challenges in recruiting,” they added.
The result? The auditors found that “fitness and educational levels of recruits in the last five years have been slightly lower than in the past,” while “compared to previous generations, recruits of today are described as harder to motivate.”
Despite this, they warned “raising the quality line” could backfire by making it even harder to find new recruits, and instead noted a number of initiatives such as sending out-of-shape recruits to fat camp before basic training has had positive results.
The audit was conducted before the military rolled out a new fitness test earlier this year that it says more closely reflects the actual tasks the country’s soldiers, sailors and air force personnel must be able to accomplish, such as carrying sandbags.
It’s unclear what impact the new test will have on recruiting, if any, but auditors concluded the military has been able to “cope with differences observed with this slightly less fit and educated generation of recruits.”
Auditors noted the budget for military recruiting has been slashed from $38.6 million in 2009-10 to $25.6 million this year, which has resulted in the closure of several recruiting centres.
However, they do not draw a link between those cuts and the declining quality in recruits.
The audit report also noted Defence Department officials have looked at following the United Kingdom and Australia in privatizing military recruitment, but that the costs outweigh the benefits at this time.
Royal Military College professor Christian Leuprecht, who has researched military demographics and recruiting for years, felt the audit report was as much a statement about the military’s failure to adapt to changing circumstances as anything else.
Leuprecht noted the absolute number of youth in Canada continues to grow, meaning there is still a substantial and growing population to recruit from.
He questioned whether the military has continued to rely too heavily on its traditional recruit pool and old training methods.
“We just need to work harder with the people who may be interested in joining but perhaps don’t have all the attributes that we need,” he said.
“Is what the organization is trying to make these kids do really what the organization needs for the 21st century? And is that perhaps why the kids themselves are a little bit disenchanted with what they’re being asked to do because they’re questioning how in the world this is possibly relevant?”