Research for Mobilization

Increased requirements for the Navy Reserve in support of the Global War on Terror have not been distributed evenly across communities; some Limited-Supply/High-Demand (LS/HD) skills are experiencing difficulties in meeting mission requirements. We develop metrics to measure and monitor the Reserve Component’s capacity to meet LS/HD missions and suggest strategies to mitigate manning shortfalls. We construct a model that estimates the ratio of the number of mobilizable reservists that will be available for each mobilization requirement in each quarter for the next 3 years. Working with our sponsor, we established a threshold of 6 mobilizable reservists for each requirement to indicate when a skill is LS/HD. We predict the ratio for 42 enlisted ratings and 14 officer designators. According to our estimates, 31 enlisted ratings and 4 officer designators either already are, or will be, LS/HD within the next 3 years in one or more paygrades. We then illustrate with the Builder (BU) rating how to conduct sensitivity analyses to see the effect on capacity and help identify strategies for improvement. Specifically, we show what would happen to the ratio if continuation rates were increased, if recruiting were increased, or if the mission were decreased.