Army cuts jobs but wants recruits

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond is planning another round of Army redundancies, while launching a recruitment campaign
12 January 2014

The Government is to have another round of Army redundancies as it continues to reduce the organisation's size, it has emerged.

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond confirmed there are more cuts on the way though numbers involved are unclear.

The Sunday Telegraph said it had been told that the Army would cut around 3,000 jobs this year, but a Government source said the figure under discussion was lower.

It is known that the regular Army is being cut from 102,000 to 82,000 over a number of years while the newly-renamed Army Reserve - formerly the Territorial Army - is being expanded from 19,000 to 30,000.

The newspaper said the latest losses are planned as the final wave of job cuts that will see the Army lose the 20,000 posts by 2020. Thousands of jobs have already gone in the past three years.

The cuts come despite the Army starting a recruitment campaign for both regular troops and reservists after saying it was struggling to attract applicants.

Mr Hammond said a television advertising campaign would "dispel forever the myth that somehow the Army isn't recruiting".

He added: "Yes, the regular Army will be smaller in the future than it has been in the past, and yes, there will be one further round of redundancies unfortunately, but that does not mean that the Army is not recruiting.

"Because the Army is an organisation which always recruits people at the bottom and trains them up and allows them to progress through the system, we always have to be recruiting."

Mr Hammond said 2013 "was not a good year for recruitment".

The new campaign will introduce a simpler online application form, a more streamlined medical clearance process and an Army fitness app.

The cuts will be announced next week, the newspaper said.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in