During a session of a British parliamentary committee, one of the speakers, a member of Parliament, questioned the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Defense about the difficulties encountered by the armies in terms of recruitment and retention of their workforce. According to him, His Majesty's armies would lose three soldiers for a single recruitment.
This human resources problem is far from only affecting the British armies. Indeed, everywhere in Europe, and more generally in the West, the armed forces face significant difficulties in this area, even if they can take on different aspects. At the same time, the Russian and Chinese armies seem to be much less exposed to it, creating a strategic issue on this subject in the years to come.
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All European countries have committed, with more or less determination, to increasing their defense spending, under the joint pressure of tensions with Russia and NATO to cope.
However, if announcements concerning programs for the acquisition and development of new equipment multiply, with the help of billions of euros, all these armies face a significant polymorphous problem in the field of human resources.
The phenomenon seems to have taken on a critical dimension in recent months, threatening, beyond the stated ambitions of modernization and strengthening of the armies, the very effectiveness of the defense tool, even though it is financed by a major financial effort.
The British armies fail to stem the human resources crisis
If alerts have multiplied in Europe, as in the entire Western sphere, for several years, the information which is emerging today, regarding the difficulties that the armies encounter in recruiting, but also in retaining their personnel, is now taking a character so worrying that it becomes strategic.
The latest alert came from Great Britain, during a session of the Public Accounts Committee examining the 2023-33 defense equipment plan.
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