John G
LE
Yes, I meant those stats, and agreed, inconclusive if all recruit vacancies were filled. As they weren't, though, that's about as conclusive as it gets short of a referendum.Quite. Another alternative conclusion can be found here:
Ice Cream Consumption Linked to Shark Attacks
ACTION POINT -> Do you have a link to these recruiting figures? Or do you just mean the standard personnel numbers found here: UK armed forces monthly service personnel statistics: 2017 - GOV.UK
If it's the above, then fine. Not to pick a fight, but you absolutely cannot conclude anything that you suggest above from those figures, because apart from the huge correlation/causation error, they don't show any numbers for the recruiting pipeline (which afaik is only internal data, thus why I asked) nor gross signoff rates. In other words, those personnel figures only show the difference in recruitment/retention once already load-balanced by the system, which removes any fidelity to the data. If, for example, on 10 Sept 2001 the number of applications jumped x 4, but still the same number of people were accepted because the available PIDs recruited for had not changed, then you would see no change in those figures. To demonstrate what you are claiming, you either need to see the gross numbers for applications and signoffs, or have some form of opinion poll which indicates reasoning or intent for joining and leaving (therefore AFCAS).
Which is basically what I expected, but just thought I'd check. So, unless there are some other figures, not a myth, just inconclusive.
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Agreed entirely, but this has all been discussed in a lot more detail already in other threads and by some far more in the know than me. Last year, for example, it took some 80,000 initial applications to get some 7,000 actual recruits.As an aside, I did get shown an internal presentation on the recruiting pipeline figures once many years ago, and they showed an increase in applications during the 2004-2008 period. At that point (200, the start of the pipeline (gross number of applications) was surprisingly large, much larger than the number of people actually recruited. Officer pipeline was more of a pyramid than the soldier pipeline, but still with the soldiers there was a significant triangle going on. I understand the US saw something similar but much more marked after 2001. One of the hidden but interesting things about the difficulties in recruiting now is that - assuming other factors are broadly equal, like individual dropout and failure rates - either:
Whatever happened, the Army didn't just lose the ability to recruit 20k odd extra people: it either lost an application pool which was close to 5x larger (again, what I was shown) than the recruit places available, or it is losing so many people through retention failure that such an application pool isn't sufficient to sustain numbers, or a bit of both.
- A significant majority of that previous application pool were unsuitable for service (failed to meet the academic or medical requirements) and therefore the number of applications was never representative of number of potential recruits. This seems somewhat unlikely: the medical and academic requirements really aren't that stringent, either for soldiers or officers.
- There was a huge collapse in the number of applications from 2008-2014 ... given that both Afghanistan and Iraq had been running for a while in 2008, this is unlikely to be anti-war sentiment.
- There has been a massive and sudden increase in the national proportion of sickly and uneducated 18-29 year olds since 2008. Highly unlikely.
- Some mojo was being done with Commonwealth recruits for which the conditions have changed. This is possible, but doesn't appear to have been the case.
Either way, you get the sense that the scale of the fuckup is slightly larger than just Capita having a duff computer system.
Of the 80,000 an unknown number were noted in the stats as probably having no intention of joining but due to the requirement for Jobseekers Allowance applicants to show they were actively looking for employment, and others (allegedly some 20,000) being Commonwealth applicants for the 200 residency exempt specialist vacancies who didn't meet the routine residency requirement. (Sorry, I can't give a link to the other thread on the phone but I'm sure it'll come up with a search for 'Commonwealth').