Air Force Stressed Job Listing

Each Spring, (around March or April), the Air Force examines all of their enlisted and commissioned officer jobs and assigns a "Stress Rating."

Stress, as defined here, is largely driven by three main factors: manpower, manning, and deployments. The driver(s) of stress is different for each career field, however, in short, when a career field is "stressed," it means there are not enough people in the career field to adequately carry out the assigned mission.

The "stress-levels" provide Air Force leadership with an objective, single measure to determine relative “pain” (i.e. stress) between AFSCs (jobs). The results serve as an indicator of problems, not an absolute statement of problems. The formula provides a starting point to pick out abnormalities. It also allows Air Force leadership to measure progress.

• - A stress level of 1.0 means that there is no (deployment or home station) shortfall
• - A stress level greater than 1.0 means that there is a shortfall. The shortfall is expressed as a percentage of assigned personnel (for example, a stress-level rating of 1.2 means that each person at home station is doing the work of 1.2 people)
• - A stress level less than 1.0 means that there is a surplus. The surplus is expressed as a percentage of assigned personnel (for example, a stress-level rating of 0.8 means that each person at home station, on average, is doing the work of .8 people)

The Air Force has a goal of trying to achieve a "stress level" of 1.2 or less for each AFSC (job).

It needs to be noted that just because a job is considered "stressed," does not necessarily mean that job has openings for new recruits. The AFSC may be adequately manned in the first-termer ranks, but considered "stressed" because of a shortage in the Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) ranks.

In that event, the Air Force would try and correct the shortage through the NCO Re-training Program.

Even if the "stress" is caused (or partially caused) by shortage of personnel in the first-termer (new recruit) ranks, available training seats come into play. Air Force technical schools can only train so many students at any given time, and all the projected "training slots" may already be filled by people already in the Delayed Enlistment Program (DEP), or already in the Air Force, but awaiting a training slot.

Increasing the number of training slots available is generally not a viable option. Adding more slots means adding more resources. More instructors must be added (thereby removing experienced NCOs from the "field"), dormitory space would need to be added, more support personnel (finance, administration, personnel, etc.), would need to be increased, chow halls expanded, etc. This process is neither cheap, nor is it fast.