Critically manned career fields given edge to fill NCO slots

  • Published
WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  Airmen in 17 Air Force specialties will be given a leg up for promotion this year in an attempt to fill manning shortfalls in their career fields.

As part of the chronic critical shortage skills program, Airmen testing for staff, technical or master sergeants during the 2005 promotion cycle, and who are in 17 career fields, will be promoted at 1.2 times the Air Force average.

For example, if the Air Force average for a particular promotion is 15 percent, then the critical skills would be promoted at a promotion rate of 18 percent.

Career fields are considered for placement on the list when the number of staff, technical and master sergeants is below and projected to remain below 90 percent, said Reese Lang, the Air Force enlisted skills manager. Once placed on the list, the specialty remains on it for at least two years and until noncommissioned officers manning in the career fields is above 95 percent.

"Basically this is to help these career fields that have NCO shortages," Mr. Lang said. "And this is done every year for the NCO promotion cycle. It is part of the promotion cycle."

Specialties on the 2005 list are:

-- Loadmaster (1A2X1).

-- Airborne Communications and Electronics Systems (1A3X1).

-- Airborne Battle Management (1A4X1X).

-- Airborne Cryptologic Linguist (1A8X1X).

-- Air Traffic Control (1C1X1).

-- Combat Control (1C2X1).

-- Command Post (1C3X1).

-- Aerospace Control and Warning Systems (1C5X1X).

-- Space System Operations (1C6X1).

-- Intelligence Applications (1N0X1).

-- Imagery Analysis (1N1X1).

-- Network Intelligence Analysis (1N4X1).

-- Electronic Signals Intelligence Exploitation (1N5X1).

-- Electronic Systems Security Assessment (1N6X1).

-- Pararescue (1T2X1).

-- Weather (1W0X1X).

-- F-16, F-117, RQ-1, CV-22 Avionics Systems (2A3X2).