Air Force Stressed Job Listing

Air Force Enlisted Jobs Fiscal Year 2019

Air Force Security Forces — ••• Official USAF Photo

Updated December 15, 2018

In 2019, the Non-Commissioned Officer Retraining Program, or NCORP, will allow veteran airmen (E-5 and above) who have re-enlisted at least once, to retrain into undermanned job specialties. But the current job the veteran airman has must be in a current career field that is adequately manned. The Staff sergeants applying must have less than 12 years of active duty and E-7, E8s must have fewer that 16 years of service to be eligible to retrain under the NCORP.

The downside would be Air Force members not volunteering the numbers needed to fill jobs. A “mandatory retraining” phase could occur until the shortfall is repaired. The jobs that are stressed are published each year by the Air Force.

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.

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. Here are many of the top stressed jobs in the Air Force:

Enlisted AFSCs (See Job Description Pages)		Slots Available
AFSC	Career Field	2018-19
3p0	Security Forces	318
1B411	cyber warfare operations career field	209
3F211	education and training career field	156
1C311	command post career field	124
4N051F	aerospace medical service job	116
1A111	flight engineer field	115
1a911	Special missions aviation field - Gunner AC130	108
4N051F	flight and operational medicine technicians	91
4N051C	independent duty medical technicians	59

Fiscal Year 2019 Review the Online Retraining Advisory to ensure Fiscal Year retraining in objectives are available "prior" to submitting your retraining application. If there are no quotas on the retraining advisory, there are no retraining opportunities for the AFSC.

*Denotes Battlefield Airmen Career Fields

1A0X1 - In-Flight Refueling

1A1X1 - Flight Engineer

1A2X1 - Aircraft Loadmaster

1A3X1 - Airborne Mission Systems Operator

1A6X1 - Flight Attendant

1A8X1 - Airborne Cryptologic Language Analyst

1A8X2 - Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Operator

1A9X1 - Special Missions Aviation

1B4X1 - Cyber Warfare Operations

*1C2X1 - Combat Control

1C3X1 - Command and Control Operations