More future Airmen will be eligible for enlistment bonuses in fiscal 2022, as the Air Force expands its Initial Enlistment Bonus program to include more skillsets.
The expansion of the IEB includes six new Air Force Specialty Codes, with bonuses of $3,000 for four-year contracts and $6,000 for six-year contracts.
Specifically, the following Air Force Speciality Codes were added to the service’s list of hard-to-fill fields, the Air Force Recruiting Service told Air Force Magazine:
- 2A534, Refuel/Bomber Aircraft Maintenance
- 2A632, Aerospace Ground Equipment
- 2W031, Munitions Systems
- 2W131, Aircraft Armament Systems
- 1D731R, Radio Frequency Transmission Systems
- 9TMAGE, Mechanical or Electrical Aptitude Area
More than a dozen different AFSCs are now included in the IEB program for 2022, ranging from special warfare operators to linguists to maintainers.
In addition, the service is offering bonuses ranging from $12,000 to $20,000 for four different career fields within cyber and IT, depending on the recruit’s highest level of certification.
The Air Force is also offering a new “Quick Ship” option, where an already fully-qualified applicant will get $8,000 to fill a short-notice Basic Military Training vacancy and ship out within five days or less.
“Quick Ship” will be available to recruits from April 11 to Sept. 30, 2022.
Enlistment bonuses are paid to recruits after they successfully complete the training specified in their contract and sign in at their first permanent duty station.
The expansion of bonuses available comes just a few months after Maj. Gen. Edward W. Thomas Jr., AFRS commander, told multiple media outlets that the Air Force is facing headwinds in recruiting, exacerbated by effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Back in September 2021, Thomas told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference that while the entire department was on track to reach its recruiting goals in 2021, the “long-term trends are concerning,” pointing to recent studies showing propensity for military service reaching historic lows.
Meanwhile, Col. Jason Scott, chief of the operations division at AFRS, told Federal News Network in January that the service’s pipeline of “qualified and waiting” recruits—those who are waiting for a spot in a certain career field to open up—is about half of what it normally is. Such recruits would be prime candidates for the “Quick Ship” bonus.
The full list of speciality codes eligible for initial enlistment bonuses is as follows:
AFSC DESCRIPTION 6-YEAR BONUS 4-YEAR BONUS 1A8X1 Airborne Linguist $20,000 N/A 1N3XX Crypto Linguist $18,000 N/A 1D731R Radio Frequency Transmission Systems $6,000 $3,000 1T0X1 SERE $40,000 N/A 2A534 Refuel/Bomber Aircraft Maintenance $6,000 $3,000 2A632 Aerospace Ground Equipment $6,000 $3,000 2W031 Munitions Systems $6,000 $3,000 2W131 Aircraft Armament Systems $6,000 $3,000 3D0X2 Cyber System Operations $12,000-$20,000 N/A 3D0X3 Cyber Surety $12,000-$20,000 N/A 3D1X1 Client Systems $12,000-$20,000 N/A 3D1X2 Cyber Transport Systems $12,000-$20,000 N/A 3E8X1 EOD $50,000 N/A 9T500 Special Warfare Operator Enlistment $50,000 N/A 9TMAGE Any Mechanical or Electrical Aptitude Area $6,000 $3,000 AFRS QUICK SHIP Any AFSC $8,000 $8,000