USNI News

By Heather Mongilio

23 January 2025

Source: https://news.usni.org/2025/01/23/navy-must-meet-recruiting-goal-for-3-years-to-close-gaps-at-sea

Sailors and Marines man the rails on the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) on Dec. 20, 2024. US Navy Photo

It will take three years of meeting recruiting goals to recover from the Navy’s current gaps-at sea, a service official said last week.

There are about 20,000 operational gaps at sea, Capt. Candice Tresch, spokesperson for the Office of the Chief of Naval Personnel, told USNI News in an email. 

The area of concern is specifically the apprenticeship, or E1 through E4 positions, gaps at sea, U.S. Fleet Forces Force Master Chief John Perryman said during a Surface Navy Association panel.

There are a certain number of first term sailors who leave every year who need to be replaced by incoming sailors, Perryman said. 

The Navy made its recruiting goals in Fiscal Year 2024, but missed them the previous two fiscal years. The goal for the current fiscal year is 40,600 enlisted active-duty sailors, the same as the previous year. 

Gaps at sea have been a problem for the Navy over the past few years. Last year, the Navy had 21,000 operational gaps at sea, but 22,000 apprenticeship gaps at sea. That’s because there were some billets in the higher ranks that were overfilled.

The large number of gaps at sea was compounded by missing the recruiting goals in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, USNI News previously reported.