Although the Air Force is required to reduce personnel manning numbers, a decrease in recruiting rather than forced reductions, is the right way to make it happen, said the service’s senior uniformed leader during a visit here Aug. 30.
Throughout this process, ensuring America’s Airmen know they are appreciated is a number one priority, said Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff.
“Retention and recruiting for the Air Force throughout this crisis over the last three years has remained superb,” the general said. “Even after stop-loss was lifted and people feared that Airmen would be leaving the Air Force in great numbers, especially in the Guard and Reserve, it just didn’t happen.
“And so we find ourselves in a position where we have 20,000 people more than we should have by law,” he continued. “I want to try and deal with it without any forced reductions in the force. I don’t want anybody to be forced to leave who doesn’t want to.”
In order to get the manning numbers to where they should be and keep Airmen’s faith, recruiting is going to be cut by about one third for a year, General Jumper said.
Taking care of our people, and the Air Force organization as a whole, is all about knowing where the critical shortages are and ensuring the right people have the right skills and are doing the right things, General Jumper said.
“We went for years during the ‘90s making cuts in people,” he said. “We would cut 10 percent, and then 15 percent and then 20 percent – and then we finally ended up cutting a total of 40 percent of our force In a lot of cases, those slots didn’t go away, and people with other skills then migrated into them. You have people with essential skills that we need, now filling slots that should have been taken off the books and never were.”
But this shift in manning doesn’t mean we’re doing more with less, said General Jumper.
“We’ve got better budgets over the last three years than we’ve had in many years …” he said.
“We’ve had pay raises and bonuses that have continued in unprecedented levels that Congress continues to vote for us,” he continued.
It all comes down to proper utilization of our people and letting them know they’re valued, the general said.
“What I want everybody to know,” General Jumper said. “(Is) that every Airman out there — we appreciate their service and we’re going to do everything we can to keep people who want to stay in the service in the service.”
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Although the Air Force is required to reduce personnel manning numbers, a decrease in recruiting rather than forced reductions, is the right way to make it happen, said the service’s senior uniformed leader during a visit here Aug. 30.
Throughout this process, ensuring America’s Airmen know they are appreciated is a number one priority, said Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff.
“Retention and recruiting for the Air Force throughout this crisis over the last three years has remained superb,” the general said. “Even after stop-loss was lifted and people feared that Airmen would be leaving the Air Force in great numbers, especially in the Guard and Reserve, it just didn’t happen.
“And so we find ourselves in a position where we have 20,000 people more than we should have by law,” he continued. “I want to try and deal with it without any forced reductions in the force. I don’t want anybody to be forced to leave who doesn’t want to.”
In order to get the manning numbers to where they should be and keep Airmen’s faith, recruiting is going to be cut by about one third for a year, General Jumper said.
Taking care of our people, and the Air Force organization as a whole, is all about knowing where the critical shortages are and ensuring the right people have the right skills and are doing the right things, General Jumper said.
“We went for years during the ‘90s making cuts in people,” he said. “We would cut 10 percent, and then 15 percent and then 20 percent – and then we finally ended up cutting a total of 40 percent of our force In a lot of cases, those slots didn’t go away, and people with other skills then migrated into them. You have people with essential skills that we need, now filling slots that should have been taken off the books and never were.”
But this shift in manning doesn’t mean we’re doing more with less, said General Jumper.
“We’ve got better budgets over the last three years than we’ve had in many years …” he said.
“We’ve had pay raises and bonuses that have continued in unprecedented levels that Congress continues to vote for us,” he continued.
It all comes down to proper utilization of our people and letting them know they’re valued, the general said.
“What I want everybody to know,” General Jumper said. “(Is) that every Airman out there — we appreciate their service and we’re going to do everything we can to keep people who want to stay in the service in the service.”