Army launch recruitment drive for 10,000 new young soldiers ahead of redundancies
Telegraph
The Army has launched a campaign to sign up 10,000 new recruits just weeks before thousands of experienced soldiers who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan will lose their jobs.
The Army has launched a campaign to sign up 10,000 new recruits just weeks before thousands of experienced soldiers who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan will lose their jobs.
Ahead of next month’s round of 5,000 redundancies, the Ministry of Defence will appeal for fresh applicants to join the Army in a television campaign today.
Critics argue the Army is losing valuable expertise as it sheds trained soldiers in favour of young recruits, many of whom are on starting salaries of £275 per week – or just over £14,000 per year.
John Baron, a Tory MP and former Army captain, said he was surprised the Ministry of Defence’s plans involve taking on so many new regular soldiers at a time when it is cutting so many battalions.
“Surely it would be make better sense to add back regular battalions,” he said. “It would be more cost effective and we would be retaining expertise which has been hard fought for.”
Ministers are trying to reduce the size of the Army shrinking from 102,000 personnel to 82,000 as part of deep cuts to the defence budget. The numbers will be bolstered by more reservists in the Territorial Army, although there are fears it will be tricky to recruit the thousands needed to provide the necessary support.
Sources within the Ministry of Defence strongly defended the move to take on more young soldiers, saying the Army would be criticised if it did not keep training up more privates and junior officers.
They said around 11,000 leave the Army naturally every year, so it is constantly recruiting to ensure it always has enough new people being trained.
The Ministry of Defence, which recently hired Capita, a private company, to run its recruitment programme, said it aims to “dispel the misconception that the Army is not hiring”.
Brigadier Andrew Jackson, the director of recruiting and training, said the Army is “always looking for talented, young people to take up the challenge of a career in the Army”.
The television commercials, aimed at 16 to 24 year olds, will show a soldier’s potential career in the Army and it will be supported by JobCentre Plus clinics in 400 places across the UK.
However, the new round of advertising has also laid the Ministry of Defence open to criticism ahead of the single biggest round of armed forces redundancies due on June 18.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “The Armed Forces is always recruiting to ensure we have enough quality junior ranks and young officers to promote up through the organisation in future.
“The Armed Forces Redundancy Programme has been designed to safeguard those skill sets needed in the future Armed Forces, while ensuring that rank structure remains.”
New figures suggest nearly one in five people would consider joining the Army but many do not realise it is recruiting owing to news about the redudancies.
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