Navy Has 20,000 Gaps at Sea Due to Training Backlog, Past Recruiting Shortfall

Despite a historic recruiting year, the Navy will need to continue to bring in more junior sailors to fully man at-sea billets, a problem that will likely continue into the next two to three years and is compounded by delays in the training pipelines, a Navy official told USNI News.

The Navy has a total of 20,683 gaps-at sea as of Dec. 3, Stacee McCarroll, a service spokesperson, told USNI News on Monday. The majority of the gaps at-sea are in the apprentice level, which covers E-1 through E-3.

At the apprentice level, there are 16,369 gaps at-sea, followed by 3,301 among journeyman sailors (E-4 to E-6) and 1,013 in the supervisor level, which includes sailors at ranks E-7 and above, McCarroll said.

The number of gaps at-sea are roughly the same as they were in April when former Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Richard Cheeseman testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee subcommittee. At that time, he expected the gaps at-sea to drop by 2,000 by the end of Fiscal Year 2025 and by another 8,000 in Fiscal Year 2026, USNI News previously reported.

The Navy expects to see drops in the gaps at-sea for the next two or three years, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy John Perryman told USNI News Thursday. Bringing in 44,096 active-duty enlisted sailors in FY 2025 will help, as did bringing in 40,978 in FY 2024, he said.

“[Recruiters] have just done eye-watering work there, and they deserve a significant amount of praise for that because the only way I can fix the gaps I have at sea is bringing people into the Navy, and a number like 45,000 sailors goes a long way in helping me close those gaps,” Perryman said.

But the Navy also loses about 10 percent of sailors every year, Perryman said.

Delays in the accession pipeline also accounts for gaps at-sea, Perryman said. While there are no current delays in getting sailors through boot camp at Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill., the Navy does see delays in A schools, and some training pipelines are longer than others, he said.

There are about 46,000 sailors currently in courses in the Navy’s accession pipeline, Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Jeffrey Czerewko told USNI News in a November statement.

Each month, the Navy sends sailors to the fleet, helping to close operational gaps, he said in the statement.

There was an overall fill rate of 88.2 percent for operational sea-duty billets, with the goal of meeting a 100 percent fill rate, Czerewko said in his statement.

“The Navy’s gains in recruiting, retaining and training sailors are about more than just volume; we are laser-focused on fit/fill to get the right people in the right billets at the right time. There is still work to be done, and we will continue to work with Type Commanders and billet resource sponsors to deliver talent to the Fleet, so the Fleet can continue the Navy’s 250-year legacy of protecting our nation,” he said in the statement.