SC Army Recruiters Getting More Interest Because of State’s High Unemployment

Columbia, SC—Army recruiters in South Carolina say they’re seeing a lot more traffic in their offices because of the state’s high unemployment rate of 11.5 percent, third-highest in the nation.

SFC Neal McMillan, a recruiter in the Pontiac office outside Columbia, says, “Seniors are graduating actually with degrees and finding it hard to find employment, so they’re looking at the Army as the service of choice right now.“

Robert Bowker enlisted recently after finding out that he would not be able to get promoted into management at his current job. The 23-year-old will head off to Army basic training at Fort Jackson August 31. He had planned on going into law enforcement after graduating from high school.

“But due to the budget cuts and everything that’s been happening, they’re laying off officers left and right and they’re not planning on hiring any more anytime soon,“ he says. “So I saw the Army as a good opportunity and, hopefully, after four years the economy will be a lot better and I won’t have a problem finding a job.“

Getting a $20,000 enlistment bonus helped him decide which job to go into in the Army, he says. The Army offers bonuses of up to $40,000, depending on which job someone signs up for. In Bowker’s case, he’s going into explosive ordnance disposal, a very dangerous specialty.

McMillan says, “If we need you in a certain area, enlistment area, if you join that area then you’re going to get a bonus for that area. If it’s a job area we don’t need you as much, it may be a small bonus to no bonus. It all depends on the job.“

While the Army can’t say whether the economy has meant more people actually enlisting, its numbers are up.

For the Columbia Recruiting Battalion, which covers all of South Carolina except Charleston, Western North Carolina and the Charlotte area and the Augusta, Georgia area, its goal for recruits for October 2007-September 2008 was 2,580. It actually enlisted 2,596. But so far in this fiscal year, from October 2008 until April 2009, the battalion has already exceeded its goal by more than 200 recruits. Its goal so far was 1,443 and it has enlisted 1,682.

The increased traffic at recruiting offices, combined with the fact that the Army itself has fewer job openings, means the Army can be more selective about who it accepts. It used to accept recruits who needed a moral waiver for having any law violations over 2 misdemeanors. Now, it’s not accepting any moral waivers.

McMillan says it’s not like the past when some people saw the Army as their fallback position.

“A lot of people think it’s like that. You know, ‘I’ll join the Army. I can always join the Army.‘ But when they come in the door and they see the qualifications, they’re like, whoa, I had no idea that you had to have a high school diploma, had to be trouble-free, have a trouble-free background or meet height and weight standards. So it’s surprising to a lot of people when they come in the door and they see how hard it actually is to get in the Army,“ he says.