Reconstitution

[Navy_Pete]

Then recruiting must be fine and the CAF should keep doing what it's doing. Good luck!

Intentions doesn't translate into effectiveness, I guess I just meant that the intake of older recruits doesn't necessarily mean the CAF recruiting isn't desparately trying to get the 18-21 crowd in the doors.

Lot of older folks with good skillsets especially on the tech side that I think can fit great niches, but doesn't mean we still don't need a lot of incoming younger people. But if you can get someone in and get 5-10 productive years out of them, doesn't really matter what age they are.

CAF recruiting needs fixing, but as long as we are ignoring attrition/retention and not actively stemming the bleed (like slowing down the ops tempo of the ships so we can put ships to sea with a reasonable crew and meet basic safety standards) it's really somewhat irrelevant in the short/medium term. Not everyone that comes in will be a Sgt, and for every one we lose will take 10 years to replace.

 

[Furniture]

Question: has the CAF decided to start targeted recruitment of 17-20 yr olds again who will be fit, healthy, and moldable soldiers/sailors/air...persons... that can be sent to and fro, or are we recruiting people in their 30's+ with other more pressing (to them) priorities that need constant accommodating?

The CAF needs people that are going to show up and shut up to fill the mass of junior ranks needed to sustain ops.

The problem the CAF has is the traditional recruiting pool of young rural Canadians looking to get out of where they are from, and get a "decent" job has essentially dried up. That traditional pool isn't coming back, so the CAF needs to learn how to operate with a force made up of people in their 30s with family obligations.

The majority of young people today live in cities they have no interest in leaving, and the CAF isn't in those cities. As a professional, all volunteer force, the CAF needs to offer something young people want. DLN training, postings to Shilo, Gagetown, etc., and too little rusty old kit isn't going to cut it.

 

[dapaterson]

Intentions doesn't translate into effectiveness, I guess I just meant that the intake of older recruits doesn't necessarily mean the CAF recruiting isn't desparately trying to get the 18-21 crowd in the doors.

Lot of older folks with good skillsets especially on the tech side that I think can fit great niches, but doesn't mean we still don't need a lot of incoming younger people. But if you can get someone in and get 5-10 productive years out of them, doesn't really matter what age they are.

CAF recruiting needs fixing, but as long as we are ignoring attrition/retention and not actively stemming the bleed (like slowing down the ops tempo of the ships so we can put ships to sea with a reasonable crew and meet basic safety standards) it's really somewhat irrelevant in the short/medium term. Not everyone that comes in will be a Sgt, and for every one we lose will take 10 years to replace.

Attrition is a good thing. The CAF is currently shrinking the denominator to the rate seems higher, but it's still mostly happening at traditional rates at traditional exit points.

Not everyone will stay 25 or 35 years. That's good. Better if we plan on that, and design occs that don't demand a 20 year career to get a RoI.

Better still to unblock training system problems... so stop recruiting pilots for 3-4 years, for example, until the backlog is reasonable.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Attrition is a good thing. The CAF is currently shrinking the denominator to the rate seems higher, but it's still mostly happening at traditional rates at traditional exit points.

Not everyone will stay 25 or 35 years. That's good. Better if we plan on that, and design occs that don't demand a 20 year career to get a RoI.

Better still to unblock training system problems... so stop recruiting pilots for 3-4 years, for example, until the backlog is reasonable.

Except attrition has massively outpaced recruitment/replacement my entire career for a lot of Navy trades, so that a lot are effectively below 50% at most ranks, with a lot of key positions missing. And that's before MELs etc.

Normal attrition is fine if you are replacing people, but we aren't. We also aren't slowing down and trying to do less, while our equipment is in bad shape.

To put in in context, we have about 15 fires a year in the Navy. TC Canada reports about 45-50 a year for all commercial ships in our waters. There is some differences in reporting (we include minor incidents), but if you drop those the major fire incidents are still way higher compared to commercial ships. The significant crew shortages, which leads to things like preventative maintenance getting missed, and normal defects not getting picked up and fixed is a huge contributor to that, so this has all been accumulating for over a decade and isn't getting better.

 

[dapaterson]

True - there needs to be dedicated focus on specific trades, and the recruiting groups should not be allowed to claim "success" by getting the topline target while missing most / many individual occupation entry requirements. It's not like the CAF can substitute a DP1 Infanteer for a thoracic surgeon.

 

[QV]

The problem the CAF has is the traditional recruiting pool of young rural Canadians looking to get out of where they are from, and get a "decent" job has essentially dried up. That traditional pool isn't coming back, so the CAF needs to learn how to operate with a force made up of people in their 30s with family obligations.

The majority of young people today live in cities they have no interest in leaving, and the CAF isn't in those cities. As a professional, all volunteer force, the CAF needs to offer something young people want. DLN training, postings to Shilo, Gagetown, etc., and too little rusty old kit isn't going to cut it.

You are not going to have an effective conventional fighting force comprised of mainly 30+ somethings and up. You will never keep up with attrition, as we are realizing now. You absolutely need the 17+ age group to make up the majority of the bottom rung and be the feeder into the mid leadership.

The CAF better do something to get the 17-21 in the door in large numbers or they'll never recover. That demographic still exists but everything the CAF has done so far is not working...

 

[Brad Sallows]

The problem the CAF has is the traditional recruiting pool of young rural Canadians looking to get out of where they are from, and get a "decent" job has essentially dried up. That traditional pool isn't coming back, so the CAF needs to learn how to operate with a force made up of people in their 30s with family obligations.

The majority of young people today live in cities they have no interest in leaving, and the CAF isn't in those cities. As a professional, all volunteer force, the CAF needs to offer something young people want. DLN training, postings to Shilo, Gagetown, etc., and too little rusty old kit isn't going to cut it.

What constitutes "rural"? Small cities?

I grew up in Kamloops in the '70s. Almost all of my friends and close acquaintances during high school days at some point did Res F service, with several going on to Reg F service (of the five closest, all did Res F and three went on to Reg F). (The local economy was sh!t for a while in the mid-80s.) My first guess would be that the "traditional recruiting pool" was young Canadians from mid-sized cities in economically depressed or mediocre circumstances.

[Add: I consider we were all tightly fitted to the "Star Trek, Sci Fi, wargame, D&D" clique, in case anyone assumes some misconception about our social status.]

 

[Remius]

You are not going to have an effective conventional fighting force comprised of mainly 30+ somethings and up. You will never keep up with attrition, as we are realizing now. You absolutely need the 17+ age group to make up the majority of the bottom rung and be the feeder into the mid leadership.

The CAF better do something to get the 17-21 in the door in large numbers or they'll never recover. That demographic still exists but everything the CAF has done so far is not working...

That’s the point I think he was making. Because that is also where we are losing them the most In their 30 somethings.

 

[Brad Sallows]

If someone were to severely scrub down the numbers of people above Sgt and Capt, we'd be a better fit for an organization that wants to bring in lots of people age 17-21 knowing that most will leave in 8 to 10 years. Being reconciled to that churn would probably be a more effective way of creating a mobilization base (ex-Regs) for SHTF scenarios than any amount of napkin-desecrating Res F reform dreams.

 

[RangerRay]

The problem the CAF has is the traditional recruiting pool of young rural Canadians looking to get out of where they are from, and get a "decent" job has essentially dried up. That traditional pool isn't coming back, so the CAF needs to learn how to operate with a force made up of people in their 30s with family obligations.

That was me. “Where do I sign to get out of this dump.”

Fast forward a few decades and for recruiting in my field where you won’t even have to leave the Province, I have talked to a number of young people from rural communities who have no interest in leaving home. As soon as I mention going to another community to get an education, or even to get posted, they lose all interest in the job.

The CAF isn’t the only one having a tough time recruiting qualified candidates.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

That was me. “Where do I sign to get out of this dump."

Same here, except I was trying to get out of the city.

 

[stoker dave]

Same here, except I was trying to get out of the city.

Same here, except I was trying to get away from a dysfunctional family.

 

[btrudy]

The preferred demographics for recruits is clearly displayed in the photos on recent CAF web based materials:

Home | Canadian Armed Forces

Jobs in the Canadian Armed Forces, and information about the application process, paid education, benefits, and life in the military.

forces.ca

No, that's the demographic of the groups that we convince to join. Those that we're targeting and those that bite aren't the same thing.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Would a still on probation,17 year old, grade nine dropout, who'd already spent 21 days in jail, even get to walk inside a recruiting centre nowadays??

They'd probably get arrested....

Yet they got a little over 10 years out of me, and a life-long gratitude for taking a chance on said loser.
Make what's old new again.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Would a still on probation,17 year old, grade nine dropout, who'd already spent 21 days in jail, even get to walk inside a recruiting centre nowadays??

They'd probably get arrested....

Yet they got a little over 10 years out of me, and a life-long gratitude for taking a chance on said loser.
Make what's old new again.

You and a whole lot of my friends - some of whom "pursued self-improvement with effect" as a line on the old PER form used to say, and went from drop-out to CWO and were amongst the most highly skilled and paid technicians in the CF.

 

[Edward Campbell]

You and a whole lot of my friends - some of whom "pursued self-improvement with effect" as a line on the old PER form used to say, and went from drop-out to CWO and were amongst the most highly skilled and paid technicians in the CF.

I should edit that to add: some of whom went from drop-out and delinquent to BGen.

 

[Furniture]

Would a still on probation,17 year old, grade nine dropout, who'd already spent 21 days in jail, even get to walk inside a recruiting centre nowadays??

They'd probably get arrested....

Yet they got a little over 10 years out of me, and a life-long gratitude for taking a chance on said loser.
Make what's old new again.

That highlights another issue the CAF is facing, we aren't taking anyone like that these days. Rather than be a place where rough men and women can find improvement, we want polished people who live up to the "Ned Flanders" standards we demand.

 

[FJAG]

That highlights another issue the CAF is facing, we aren't taking anyone like that these days. Rather than be a place where rough men and women can find improvement, we want polished people who live up to the "Ned Flanders" standards we demand.

If I recall my Simpson lore, Ned failed to meet his own standards on occasion.

 

[Navy_Pete]

That highlights another issue the CAF is facing, we aren't taking anyone like that these days. Rather than be a place where rough men and women can find improvement, we want polished people who live up to the "Ned Flanders" standards we demand.

Which is the downside of 'zero tolerance' for some things. Have had a few people with minor drug/alcohol issues really turn themselves around and turn into high performers, where they might have been released now under an AR, even though they didn't do anything significant enough to catch a normal charge, or was just settled with a fine.

If someone has no hope of redemption, may as well lean into it, and really no wonder why so many people become career criminals.

 

[kratz]

Sailors who were 'characters' in our past tended to be an asset in one form or another. I've seen a good many who benefited from their service. Along the way, the stories, shenanigans and other incidents involving these "fine upstanding" individuals, served as a moral boost, collective warning and expedient rough verbal correction as required. YMMV.

The lack of of said characters leaves the CAF with so few stories, all we have left are 10 year old seagull sausage stories.