Military Personnel: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Reserve Employment Issues

DOD has made progress capturing employment information on its reservists since August 2005, but several challenges remain. In August 2004, DOD changed employer reporting by reservists from voluntary to mandatory. The number of reservists reporting employer information to DOD increased from 60 percent in August 2005 to about 77 percent in August 2006. However, we found that reservists have not fully reported civilian employment information, reported employment data are not necessarily current, and DOD s employer verification process is not adequate. Complete and current civilian employer information is important to DOD for several reasons, including its ability to provide sufficient outreach to employers. In August 2004, DOD established a 95 percent goal for reporting employment information for the Selected Reserve and a 75 percent reporting goal for the Individual Ready Reserve and Inactive National Guard. As of August 2006, about 91 percent of Selected Reserve members had reported this information, whereas only 30 percent of Individual Ready Reserve or Inactive National Guard Members with good addresses had complied. Currently, the Army Reserve has met the Selected Reserve reporting goal and the Army National Guard has met the Inactive National Guard reporting goal and nearly met the Selected Reserve goal, while the other reserve components have met neither goal. Moreover, DOD does not have specific time frames for when reserve components are to achieve their reporting goals, and has not directed the service components to take actions to assure compliance. In addition, the DOD instructions requires reservists to update their employment information when changes occur; however, during focus groups we found that reservists generally were not aware of the need to update employer information when employers changed.