Super Size That? Fast Food Jobs Bad For Recruiting
Be All You Can Be!
Recruiting is and has been down across the Service Branches. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth has blamed negative media coverage for exacerbating its recruiting slump. She mentioned stories about mental health issues some soldiers face and seemingly rampant sexual assaults across the entire military.
A memo penned by her and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville painted a grim picture of the recruiting environment- they projected the Army to lose some 14,000 soldiers, decreasing its overall size to ~452,000 by the end of 2023.
The Nevada Guard Command Sergeant Major has a different theory on the recruiting woes.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s: CSM says recruiting hurt by fast food industry
By Sarah Sicard
The National Guard claims to be facing stiff competition in recruitment from the private sector.
And while that notion may bring to mind high-paying STEM jobs at major companies like Google, Apple, IBM and the like, it is a more surprising industry that has drawn the particular ire of Guard officials: Fast food.
“It’s Wendy’s,” Nevada Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Marco Irenze said. “It’s Carl’s Jr. It’s every job a young person goes up against, because they’re offering the same incentives that we are right now.”
While the Army National Guard has crossed the baseline threshold for recruitment this year by a margin of 699 soldiers, things on the Air side aren’t going as well in the war against Wendy’s.
“This is the most challenging recruiting environment the Department of Defense has probably ever faced,” said Col. Anthony Pasquale, division chief of Air National Guard recruiting and retention. “Projections for where we’ll land, we could land anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 short.”
Guard officials cited competitive wages and schedule flexibility in private industry as a major hindrance in the recruitment process…
… companies like Wendy’s now offer tuition reimbursement as well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And of course, employees also benefit from food discounts on such tasty dishes as the Baconator…
I thought the shrinking pool of eligible recruits was the issue, and those that are able to serve have problems with the stress and dangerous nature of military service. Then it was bad press about the PeeTeeEssDee and hostile work environments. SecArmy Wormuth has touted all these as causal factors to depressed recruiting. Now candidates are staying away in their droves because they can’t get a McRib sammich- or is Army service an unattractive option for other reasons? Wish I could post a survey on the issue, but Big Army won’t release raw data and the statistical methodology on the one they use to prop up their narrative. No idea why that is.
Category: Big Army, Blue Falcons, Diversity, Points-and-Laughs
Hell, everybody screaming for willing employees…’specially ones that are “willing” AND able to work.
I believe that there are still lots of Patriotic Kinds in this country. However, who wants to sign up to defend other places in the never ending wars? And how many of us have told our kids and/or mentored youngsters to avoid military service under the current climate…and regime? We all saw this coming. I think the powers that be saw it coming too. Maybe that’s why they opened the borders to get some new cannon fodder?
I was under the impression all recruiting and future retention issues were to be resolved after DADT was repealed, followed by allowing trans-folk to openly serve, and lowering standards across the board?
What gives?
//sarc off//
As for the thousands of patriotic youngsters who are actually eligible and willing to serve, I suspect the consensus of not wanting to is because they don’t want to serve under an administration (and by extension, a government) that is openly hostile towards them – among other reasons.
Possibly, however retention mission has been made for the year. That has left them more to do with economics.
I for one thought the Heather has two mommies video ad would’ve had them coming in droves to the recruiters.
Since the sordid
PentaPeepeegone has a BigBrothernon-gender specific sibling System and everything is ‘national security’ thanks to the DeeDohJay’s revival of the; Sedition Act, Espionage Act and have compromised in a Connecticutian fashion on a final solution to the republican question…Waiting for the day honest critique of the machine’s capture of our military is considered a Friday Night Rehabilitation-able offense:
Irish has an article discussing this same subject in the civilian side of the work force. Many of the comments point out that it’s the laziness of the current crop of “applicants” and show that it’s not just the military that is struggling to “fill the ranks”.
https://theferalirishman.blogspot.com/2023/06/sign-of-times-what-are-you-seeing-in.html
Work-from-home or it’s a human rights violation:
https://www.techradar.com/pro/5-reasons-why-office-first-mentality-has-no-place-in-a-post-covid-work-era
Covered in Fortune magazine… other, less “woke,” folk don’t find workin’ at the workplace so awful:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/eli-lilly-ceo-pinpoints-3-123000586.html
Great read. Thanks for the link.
Speaking Of Fast Food…
“Unfit To Serve”
https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/resources/unfit-to-serve/index.html
“Military Health Experts Highlight Need For U.S. Youth To Maintain Healthy Weight”
https://www.army.mil/article/265476/military_health_experts_highlight_need_for_u_s_youth_to_maintain_healthy_weight
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the U.S. is experiencing an epidemic of obesity among children and adolescents aged 2–19 years. This fact is based on 14.7 million cases from 2017–2020.”
“This means approximately one out of every five U.S. children and adolescents has a serious weight problem that can lead to various long-term health problems, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, breathing problems such as asthma and sleep apnea, and joint problems.”
“This problem has also translated into a national threat to military readiness.”
“Over one third of young adult military applicants do not meet the Army’s weight standards for enlistment. The inability to meet these standards is a leading reason why applicants are determined to be non-suitable to enter any of the U.S. military services.”
“The military has experienced increasing difficulty in recruiting soldiers as a result of physical inactivity, obesity, and malnutrition among our nation’s youth. Not addressing these issues now will impact our future national security.”
“Mission Heaviness: Obesity Poses Serious Threat To U.S. Military Readiness, Study Warns”
https://studyfinds.org/obesity-us-military-readiness/
“Obesity is now putting the world at risk — by threatening the readiness of the U.S. military, according to a team of nutritionists.”
“Researchers from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine say the rise in the number of overweight people limits numbers of available recruits for military service and affects mission-readiness.”
“This is a complex problem that has a deep impact on national security by limiting the number of available recruits, decreasing re-enlistment candidacy, and potentially reducing mission readiness.”
“A link between health and national security was first identified in 1946 after World War II. The National School Lunch Program targeted malnutrition. During the war, food rationing meant daily calories were limited. Today, the reverse is happening. Fat and sugar-laden products and increased portion sizes are readily available and it’s leading
to bulging waistlines.”
“Since 1960, numbers of otherwise eligible men and women for enlistment have dropped, with those exceeding body fat percentage standards doubling and tripling, respectively. The crisis has prompted military leaders to call for changes in nutritional and dietary patterns.”
Get some!
ninja,
Segue to Chili Feed below.
(See what I did there?)
🙂
Note that this is the Guard. Anyone that researches (wishful thinking with today’s enlistment pool) will see that the benefits of Active Duty far outweigh those offered by fast food companies. I am, of course, biased, and I couldn’t wait to get away from home. Hell, I retired 1000 miles from Nowhere to stay away from family and friends.
The thing about the National Guard is that they pay four Drill periods a month. Four days of active duty pay sounds decent until you realize that 1/4 of your weekends are gone. You don’t earn anywhere near enough to live in a Guard salary, so you have to get a job. If you’re lucky, it’s a full-time Monday-Friday gig. If you’re not so lucky, it’s a part-time flexible schedule gig. So, management has to work around your Drill schedule and may or may not decide to cut your hours, especially if you normally work weekends. Then there’s the two weeks of annual training. Sounds good, but if you’re trying to balance the Citizen with the Soldier, you might have children, pets, or other things to worry about. Fast food employees clock in, make their ever-increasing hourly wage, and usually get a nice discount on their unhealthy meal, if they don’t get it for free.
No NCOs calling to tell you that there’s an ACFT at 0530 on Saturday. No possibility of Hurricane Storma resulting in a mobilization where you have to miss work and school to fill sandbags.
The National Guard plays a key role in our military, but having been screwed by VA ARNG Recruiters and having seen the lies perpetuated by LA ARNG Recruiters (some similar to ones I heard ten years earlier), I can’t help but gloat at the thought of Wendy’s defeating the Guard at recruiting young men and women.
Not to mention that in the last 20 years, extended deployments became the norm, turning a part-time gig into a full-time gig for months at a time.
Concur:
Nevada National Guard?
Hey, that’s Lester Kent Brown (stain) territory.
Perhaps SGM Irenze can chime in
and give some additional unwanted attention to Elko, Nevada,
the Elko POW*MIA Awareness Ass.,
and good ol’ not so dearly departed Les Brown !!!
Les Brown – Even in Death, The Claims Persist Steve Balm | February 9, 2021
Im sure the boys at the gloryhole just love that soft, pillowy goatee.
He’s even wearing eye pro! No eye clap for Brownstain
Wish I could have taken that green beret w/ 1st Group flash and shoved it up his lying ass.
He was TDY and in the same POW camp Rambo escaped from in ’71, eh? /sarc
He wasn’t at Serenity Valley, that’s for sure.
I think the “lazy” generation is a corporate media myth. The young people we hire are extremely talented and motivated to work…we’ve yet to hire one that isn’t.
The pool seems smaller because of the 2021 Great Retirement in the month of August I think, when more Americans retired in that month than in any previous month in the history of the nation. As of October of 2022 the retired population of the US was 1.5% points higher than the pre-pandemic levels. That 1.5% accounted for nearly all of the labor force participation rate drop. Slightly more than half of those 1.5% are considered “excess retirements” meaning people who previous to the pandemic would not have retired but post-pandemic have decided they’ve had enough of silly work rules, work conditions, whatever and simply retired before reaching full retirement age.
When people retire they are typically at the apex of their career in experience and salary…that large a change means there were suddenly a great many opportunities for younger workers to move upwards across many different career paths…as workers in their 40s and 50s took the place of workers in their late 50s and 60s the workers in their late 20s and 30s were moving up to fill the vacancies left by the advancing 40 and 50 year olds…suddenly those entry level positions held zero attraction as companies didn’t catch up to the reality of the workforce right away. As companies for the first time in our history across the board were competing for new workers wages increased such that Wendy’s is a better option than Uncle Sam…
If a company isn’t offering a starting wage of at least $20/hr in my part of the US they often won’t see a single person respond to their ads for help. Wages have increased across the board because at the top levels companies are also competing for a smaller pool of candidates. When I can make more working for someone else than running my own company, there’s a harsh reality afoot.
That may explain why my FD is not drawing more that 15 individuals to our annual testing for the last 3-5 years.
Wages are up? Could have fooled me. My average paradise the last 4 years has been just over 2 percent. Even last year was under 4 percent, and with inflation at 9 percent, you get the idea.
We want a master’s, five years of experience, willingness to work 6 days/60 hours a week for entry level– minimum wage ($12/hour was my Baby Boomer self startin’ out, you’ll make that after 5 years if you play your cards right because we have to be “more competitive” now).
Hey, why can’t we get anybody to apply? (Dang it, $5.75 for coffee at Starbucks now!)
….Bull – and I can NOT stress this enough- shit. I’ve seen what’s working fast food lately, and it wouldn’t qualify for the Army in any event.
Agreed, We’re not exactly talking about the high performers here. Most wouldn’t even make cat IV status.
Don’t forget, it’s also supposed to be right wing people saying that there’s wokeness going on, when there is totally not any wokeness going on. So it’s your fault.
The whole 70% are not eligible has been true for at least 22 years. Now it is suddenly an excuse. In 2021 mission was made. In 2020 mission was made.
Something happened near the end of the 2021. It was, according to the president, a very successful withdrawal from Afghanistan. To everybody else It was an unmitigated disaster. Nobody took responsibility for it, therefore nothing needed to be changed or fixed. It’s a lot tougher to gas light kids that can pass the ASVAB. Even if they have the full unconditional support of the left wing media nobody f****** believes them.
In the beginning of 2022 something else happened. A big old war kicked off in Europe, that the United States jumped into hip deep. The difference between being in there hip deep and eyeball deep, is one little slip up from a man who is famous for slip ups. Who will go fight in that war? Certainly not the children of the privileged ruling class. So why should anybody else?
The blended PSYOP/fake-consent-machine that is NAFO et al on twatter/other socmedia is an outlet valve for those who would serve if it wasn’t for {insert all the excuses here}, giving this generation the feeling that they’re doing something when in a twist-of-fate reality, everything they’ve opined about ‘as being the problem’ is multiplied by the value of their futures being blown up in a conflict that will have negative effects for generations to come.
The Graham-Blumenthal
resolutionbuttfuckingorgy should scare us all, but it doesn’t, and that worries me greatly-er.Scares you.
My long waited fallout shelter is built. I will be sipping Scotch, eating freeze dried mountain house snacks, with my harem waiting for the radioactivity to drop to a safe level. And then re-emerge to repopulate the Earth.
Protip – Remember, eunuchs were made to ensure the safety of the head of the household. You don’t want people getting ideas.
Yeah? How many PFs you got, bro?
(tried to post this link on another thread in response to KoB and got modded… oops)
Young whipper snappers like to hang out on Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, and elsewhere. They appear to have a different mindset about military service. To paraphrase a Reddit thread, a kid complained about “being penalized for life” as a result of a decision made at 18. What was that decision?
Signing for a college loan.
Someone mentioned joining the military as a way to pay for one’s education. One poster “pooh poohed” that idea by lamenting the fact that people risked getting shot or having psychological problems just to get their education paid for. One implication was that it was not fair that this risk be taken just to get an education. This individual is not alone among the younger generations with this mindset.
“Someone mentioned joining the military as a way to pay for one’s education. One poster “pooh poohed” that idea by lamenting the fact that people risked getting shot or having psychological problems just to get their education paid for. One implication was that it was not fair that this risk be taken just to get an education. This individual is not alone among the younger generations with this mindset. “
I think that mindset is no longer unique to just this younger generation, I think they learn that from their education system to a degree but also to some of us who are veterans who are lamenting a system that’s changed in ways we don’t find good and in ways we no longer believe benefit the service.
Add in 50 years of slowly deciding as a society that most individuals aren’t solely responsible for their poor life choices (regarding the loan) and here we are…a society that doesn’t value itself or its nation as worthy of any sort of self sacrifice.
When you teach your people to dislike their nation and their own government adds to the distrust when its formerly trusted institutions are revealed to be liars, frauds, and political operatives I don’t see a clear path forward to a successful end game for such a nation…and I don’t see how such a nation remains a superpower in terms of strength, education, or any other metric that matters when it comes to putting one’s people and nation first on the world stage.
I hope to be proven wrong before my time ends here, we shall see.
There’s a difference between the younger generations and the older ones though. The older generations are pointing to what had already been addressed on this thread/site. The younger generations are not lamenting a system that had changed, as the change is more aligned with what they’ve been brought up to believe.
The younger generation is not looking at the bigger picture that you point out, but to a more self-centered viewpoint. I posted an article here, a few months back, showing the results of polling done among the younger generations about their attitude about military service. Not up among their complaints were issues that veteran and currently serving members lament. Folks here point out to the wokeness that is going on… But they’ve been exposed to this wokeness. They were concerned with the risks, to themselves, that military service brought about. They’re saying, “Don’t join, you might get shot” or “you might get PTSD.”
These folks want the benefits without having to work for it. They want “free university education,” they want “student loan forgiveness.” Alternatively, I have found that when it comes to the far left viewpoints, there is a unity among multiple generations.
Well, when over HALF of your target market (appx 54% per 2022 numbers) are white male…and for the past 3 years have been told by design they are “systematically racist and homophonic”….you’re gonna run the risk of alienating your largest applicant pool.
Nevada Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Marco Irenze is a fucking clown.
After he got laid off by McD’s, Ronald went on a bender:
What is the difference between Ronald McDonald and General Mark Milley?
One is a corporate mascot, and the other is a clown.
Get rid of the Leftoid mandatory psychosis shit and recruitment and retention will increase.
Duh.
Don’t say truth, comrade– is “racist,” you know.
Also would help if we fought to conquer, stopping only when the enemy franticly waves the white flag and accepts unconditional surrender.
Victory, not “nation building”.
Build ours. Peacefully if we can. On a pile of their bones if we must. But US first.
CMSgtAF Bass recently talked about USAF recruiting and slumping standards.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/us/top-air-force-leader-raises-alarm-slumping-standards-amid-china-russia-threats-second-best-wont-cut-it.amp
Anyone remember that Steelyi character telling us that the military had to torpedo tradition, get touchy/feely, and offer more stickies-and-chewys to gen z or recruiting and retention numbers would plummet?
I wonder how zim/zer is doing these days…
(I hate what I’m about to say as it’s a touch Larsian, but if the tie die hypocrisy fits…)
Progressive boomer logic like that raised some shit kids that ‘parented’ some even shittier kids, getting us here.
Waiting on the smashing of Confederate monuments and headstones in
Lee’s [illegally stolen] PlantationArlington and renaming of The Peepeegon to The RuPaul Defense Department Building to say ‘I fucking told you, fool’.It ain’t Wendy’s. It’s the woke bullshit.
But you don’t need me to tell you that.
Well the Service might be dealing with a heck of a Wendy’s competition but they are certainly not beholding to burger king, cuz once you sign up you can’t have it your way…
My neighbor is a recruiting sergeant (army). He had a couple guys interested until they heard about student loan forgiveness. They told him they decided to sign up for junior college, borrow $ 10,000, and party for a year. I called Senator Tammy Duckworth’s office (can’t talk to anyone, just leave a message) and said she pissed all over the poor kids who served a hitch to get the G.I. Bill when she voted for the loan “forgiveness”.