Cuts target officers, overstaffed fields

[unhappycamper]

Air Force officials want 2,074 officers and 1,633 enlisted airmen to separate voluntarily or to end their terms ahead of schedule. It’s part of a plan to trim payroll so the personnel budget will be met.


Cuts target officers, overstaffed fields
By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Nov 29, 2009 9:14:15 EST

More than 3,700 airmen need to leave the service over the next 10 months if the Air Force wants to stay within its budget and shift positions into expanding career fields — and it does.

The decision announced Nov. 17 to cut the airmen came less than two weeks after the service unveiled expanded re-enlistment bonuses and renewed bonus programs for rated officers.

The Air Force wants 2,074 officers and 1,633 enlisted airmen to separate voluntarily or to end their terms ahead of schedule. While the service expects to reach the enlisted goal, it is less certain about the officer goal since the midcareer and junior officers it wants gone would face a double whammy: no voluntary separation pay and a tight civilian job market.

For fiscal 2010, Congress set the size of the Air Force at 331,700 active-duty airmen, said Col. Joan Garbutt, chief of military force policy at the Air Staff’s personnel directorate. As of Nov. 17, the Air Force had 333,113 airmen — 1,413 too many.

Better-than-expected retention would continue to push the number upward unless the service allowed airmen to depart and trimmed the number of active-duty recruits, Garbutt said.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/11/airforce_force_cuts_112909w/

[dkf]

1. Looks like there is no recruiting shortage in this crappy economy.

[Angleae]

4. The Air Force rarely has recruiting problems.

Good economy or not. The Army on the other hand...

[jody]

2. Not to worry, contractors will be paid to pick up their workload. n/t

[ET Awful]

3. Why is it that the first time I read the thread title, I read it as "CULTS target officers . . ."

Boy, I really need to get my first cup of coffee earlier in the morning.