Application of Non-Rated Line Officer Attrition Levels and Career Field Stability

The Air Force monitors the strength of its active duty officer force and attempts to achieve the difficult challenge of employing a diversity of talent among career specialties and experience levels. This study completes two objectives, predicting future manning levels for 23 career fields, and providing a statistical framework to assess the stability of these fields. The first part of the study applies regression and survival analysis to subpopulations within the active duty Air Force officer corps, and then aggregates them by year to forecast future personnel levels. Four career fields are considered, including Acquisitions (ACQ), Logistics (LOG), Support (SPT), and Non-Rated Operations (NRO). Based on the set of officers who commissioned within these career fields in 2014, this analysis predicts the number of personnel who will remain in each of these fields over the next 30 years. The rates depend on which factors have proven significant in each career field via a regression analysis and may include a combination of gender, commissioning source, prior enlisted service and/or Distinguished Graduate (DG) status at commissioning. The second part of the study measures the stability of career fields through calculation and comparison of the mean and standard deviation values for the coefficients of variation. These results can be applied to decrease personnel management costs and enhance understanding of officer behavioral patterns, thereby improving the way that USAF leadership manages its personnel