U.S. Air Force offers cash bonus to boost recruit numbers by June

April 26, 2000
Web posted at: 8:58 PM EDT (0058 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Air Force announced Wednesday it was offering a $5,000 cash bonus to each recruit who enlists and enters basic training before May 31.

The bonus, intended to boost the number of recruits over the next five weeks, would apply to enlistees who plan to specialize in one of more than 100 career fields, the Air Force said.

The military services have been trying various methods of increasing enlistments during a time when they are finding it difficult to convince young people to join the military.

Military leaders are also faced with the departure of trained and experienced officers and enlisted members from the military. The problems with recruiting and retaining qualified people are generally attributed to job growth in the private sector and to longer and more frequent deployments for soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

U.S. military obligations in the Balkans and the Persian Gulf, plus increasingly common peacekeeping and humanitarian relief missions around the world, have created a dramatic increase in the amount of time the average servicemember spends away from home. The overall size of the U.S. military has decreased by 40 percent since 1990.

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