Black recruits up 49 percent in fiscal 2007

[unhappycamper]

Black recruits up 49 percent in fiscal 2007
By John Hoellwarth - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Nov 3, 2007 8:01:37 EDT

An increase in the number of black recruits shipped to boot camp in fiscal ‘07 reversed a seven-year slide in minority recruiting, though some predict hitting high numbers this year is going to get harder.

That’s because black communities are most likely to disapprove of the war in Iraq, and black families are more likely to resist sending their children into the service right now, according to a recently released Center for Naval Analyses report on the Corps’ minority recruiting efforts. The report recommends that the Marine Corps take steps to raise its profile in the black community, perhaps with an ad campaign outlining the successes of black Marines. Nearly 11 percent of fiscal 2007 recruits — 4,440 in all — were black, a 49 percent increase over the 2,980 contracted in fiscal 2006, which marked a low point for black recruiting in recent years, said Maj. Wes Hayes, a spokesman for Marine Corps Recruiting Command.

Mike Styka, deputy head of the Corps’ enlisted recruiting current operations, attributed the increase in black recruiting to a corresponding increase in the number of recruiters on the street.

In 2005 and 2006, the Corps was losing recruiters to reassignment or discharge faster than replacements could be sent to recruiter school, “so we had a lot of sectors that weren’t being covered,” Styka said.

By adding 400 more recruiters during fiscal 2007 to help meet the Corps’ goal of growing the active-duty ranks by 22,000 Marines by 2011, “we just had the ability to go everywhere,” he said.

Corps officials plan to add another 200 recruiters to America’s high schools and strip malls during the current fiscal year, as MCRC tries to increase black recruiting from 10.9 percent of all applicants to 13 percent. That would match nationwide demographics, according to Census Bureau data published in 2006.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/11/marine_recruiting_diversity_071103/