The pool of master sergeants who are eligible for promotion to senior master sergeant (E-8) will shrink by about 3%, as long as workforce trends hold steady, Falls said.Īirmen are already seeing the plan’s impact in the 2022 promotion cycle. Technical sergeant and master sergeant billets (E-6 and E-7) would stay essentially flat, planned for 15% and 9.5% of the enlisted force, respectively. “Since the Air Force does not use quotas to promote from E-1 through E-4, there should be no ripple effects to airmen below E-5,” Falls said. Combined, those airmen would comprise 26.5% of the force rather than 25%. The service also plans to expand its three lowest ranks - airman basic to airman first class - to grow its bench amid a severe shortage of maintainers and other workers. “Additionally, continued engagement among supervisors and their airmen ensures we have all the tools necessary to take care of the needs of our airmen and their families.” “The AF acknowledges that compensation is key in recruiting an all-volunteer force and retaining top talent,” service spokesperson Tech. And without more jobs in the pipeline, the Air Force needs to shrink its cohort of midlevel enlisted so that higher tiers aren’t overwhelmed by demand. Without airmen leaving to make room for more junior troops to rise, the workforce stagnates. More people than usual are staying in the military, but the number of jobs has remained essentially flat, according to the Air Force. “Although this news may be discouraging for some, this revision is absolutely needed and allows us to grow the Air Force our nation needs.” “We value the experience airmen bring to their work centers,” Air Force personnel chief Lt. Rather, billets are changing proportionally across all jobs.

One career field will not see deeper cuts to its upper enlisted ranks than others, service spokesperson Laurel Falls said. Overall, it requests 323,400 positions for active duty airmen in 2023. The Air Force has around 262,000 active duty enlisted billets in 2022, and wants to downsize to about 257,000 next year.

Air force enlisted ranks