Experts and recruiters note that Gen Z, people born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, are much different from previous generations, including their lack of familiarity with the military, growing up in the social media era, and distinct life goals.
A senior congressional aide familiar with the first draft of the National Defense Authorization Act, released last week by the House Armed Services Committee, noted that the Department of Defense is competing with the likes of Google, Meta, and Netflix for tech jobs and the department needs to incentivize applicants to choose the military.
From a financial standpoint, the military is also competing with organizations and companies that will likely offer employees more money and less physically demanding work, which is why Congress is looking to boost pay by 5.2% in the defense funding bill. Gen Z, as a whole, has less familiarity with the military, fewer meet the health and fitness requirements of the military, and there's a seemingly different sense of patriotism. Service branches, as a result, have relaxed certain appearance standards, giving applicants who fail a drug test or fail to qualify on the aptitude test extra opportunities to correct it, and increasing bonuses, among other changes to incentivize enlistment.