In an effort to entice recruits to join for six years, the Army is boosting enlistment bonuses up to $50,000, Army Recruiting Command announced Wednesday.
According to a statement, the Army is currently trying to fill both part-time and full-time vacancies in about 150 career fields in both active-duty and reserve components.
The new bonuses are the largest the service has ever offered, The Hill reports, as incentives were previously topped at $40,000.
“We are still living the implications of 2020 and the onset of COVID, when the school systems basically shut down,” Maj. Gen. Kevin Vereen, head of Recruiting Command, told the Associated Press. “We lost a full class of young men and women that we didn’t have contact with, face-to-face.”
The incentive package will be based on a variety of factors including career field, individual qualifications, length of enlistment contract and ship date for training.
“This is an opportunity to entice folks to consider the Army,” Brig. Gen. John Cushing, who serves as the deputy commanding general for operations for Recruiting Command, said. “We’ve taken a look at the critical (military occupational specialties) we need to fill in order to maintain the training bases, and that is where we place a lot of our emphasis.”
