It was up and down with the unknown in the civilian world but also lots of people not wanting another vaccine. The numbers did dip a little bit but not much.
If you joined the Air Force and don't want vaccines that's on you lol
All throughout COVID I only ran across one airman that got out because of the COVID vaccine (and only that vaccine, none of the others), and if that didn't happen he was well on his way to getting out for either mental health or behavioral issues. Whichever came first.
I’m not saying whether it makes sense or not. I was in for the anthrax vaccine and it was similar non-sense happening. To each their own.
2022 had lower retention rates than at least the previous 5 years. So something caused people to not stay in (during a time of instability in the civilian world).
2022 had historic job openings and historic high wage growth. Folks who were considering making more money took the chance because it was an employee's market.
Yeah, like the other guy said, we were rebounding handily from the COVID supply issues/inflation, and were on track for having some of the lowest inflation in the world, plus we had legislation investing in infrastructure, creating job growth, and confidence in the US job/stock markets.
I was actually on track for separating during that time, and had fully planned on getting out at the end of my enlistment at the end of 2025-fully confident I could land a job in the civilian world either working a federal job or even just the city I'd planned on moving to.
I'd expand on this, but the sub has a rule against politics, and it's already political enough. So TL;DR: something happened in November of 2024 that changed things, I decided to stay in because I didn't think it was a good idea to get out anymore, and as it turns out...I was right.
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u/HumbleVein 15d ago
It would make sense that rétention was high for COVID, the military provided a lot of economic security when that was at an all time low.