Out of 36,913 eligible Air Force staff sergeants, just 5,354—14.5 percent—were selected for promotion to technical sergeant this year, the Air Force announced June 29. The rate is the lowest since 1996, when just 11.2 percent of eligible Airmen were selected for E-6, not including supplemental promotions, Air Force Personnel Center spokesman Michael Dickerson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
The announcement marks yet another rough promotion cycle for noncommissioned officers. Air Force officials announced last year that there will be lower-than-usual promotion rates among the NCO corps in the near future, as the service looks to course correct after promoting too many Airmen with insufficient experience into senior noncommissioned officer ranks.
“The majority of the experience decline was attributable to the Air Force trying to achieve an enlisted force structure with too many higher grades,” Col. James Barger, Air Force Manpower Analysis Agency commander, said in a statement at the time. “We also found that experience levels would continue to decline unless the Air Force lays in more junior Airmen allocations and fewer E5-E7 allocations.”
The trend is set to continue for at least another year or so: Barger said at the time that the goal was to reach a “healthier” distribution of Airmen across grades by fiscal 2025.
Amid a rash of low promotion rates in 2022, the competition for promotion to staff sergeants (E-5) was particularly brutal—just 21.1 percent of eligible Airmen were promoted, the lowest mark since 1997. This year’s E-6 numbers exceeded that, in contrast to the promotion rates for technical sergeants trying to hit the E-7 rank of master sergeant, which recovered slightly in 2023.
All told, 4,998 out of 28,831 eligible Airmen were selected for E-7 this year, a rate of 17.34 percent, the Air Force announced in May. That figure was the third lowest rate for E-7 since 2010, but it was up from 2022’s 14.8 percent.
The 1996 low point for E-6 promotions also took place within a batch of lean years. The selection rate for E-6 never rose above 13 percent from 1993 to 1996, excluding supplemental promotions, Dickerson pointed out. The military rapidly shrank throughout the 1990s in response to the end of the Cold War, going from about 2.1 million personnel in 1990 to under 1.4 million in 2000, according to RAND.
Though technical and master sergeants had a lean 2023, one rank of enlisted Airmen enjoyed their highest promotion rates since 2012. In March, the Air Force selected 1,629 master sergeants to promote to the E-8 rank of senior master sergeants out of an eligible 16,031, a rate of 10.16 percent.
YEAR SELECTED ELIGIBLE RATE 2023 5,354 36,913 14.50 2022 5,430 33,935 16 2021 9,422 34,973 26.94 2020 8,246 28,358 29.08 2019 9,467 29,328 32.28 2018 8,416 27,555 30.54 2017 8,167 25,552 31.96 2016 7,501 33,569 22.35 2015 8,446 35,863 23.55 2014 6,684 38,344 17.43 2013 5,654 37,608 15.03 2012 8,518 37,402 22.77