Why does there seem to be so much recruiting with the downsize?

Well all of the departments are made up of a certain percent of first term and career members. Last time I checked for the AF we were going back to 55% first term Airmen and 45% career Airmen. With that in mind recruiting is still very important.

A few different reasons why recruiting continues even during a down sizing.
- All services use an up or out promotion approach. Therefore we have to have a constant flow at the bottom to backfill those who either got out or were promoted.
- Capability vs capacity. Tied to above but reduced operational capacity does not mean no operational capacity. Even a down sizing force has operational capacity that must be consistently renewed and regenerated thus we need to keep recruiting.
- Easier (and cheaper) to maintain recruiting capability even if reduced than to eliminate it. From a Recruiting Command perspective it is easier and cheaper to maintain a skeleton organization along with process, procedure, and system than it is to eliminate Recruiting Command for even a limited period of time and then try to re establish this capability.
- Recruiting is a process not an objective. Kind of like farming from this perspective. We need to plant seeds now that we may not harvest until several months or years from now. If we do not plant the seed then we are guaranteed to not have a harvest (recruits in the future).

There are always those that come and go after one enlistment. If the services didn't backfill those positions then they would really be short handed. The career guys will always be there until pushed out by forced retirement or downsizing.