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Defense’s Loyalty Crisis — For Industry Professionals Thu Oct 15, 2026 — 10:43 PM PT · Defense B2B podcast news daily - for industry professionals subscribe to develop your skillsets

• 0:00
  Welcome to Copilot Podcasts. Here's a number
• 0:04
  that should stop you cold. The US aerospace and
• 0:07
  defence industry supports roughly 2 .1 million
• 0:10
  jobs, generates a trillion dollars in total business
• 0:13
  activity and yet right now there are more than
• 0:16
  70 ,000 security cleared positions sitting completely
• 0:19
  empty. An industry that literally builds the
• 0:23
  tools of national security cannot find enough
• 0:25
  people to staff itself. Today we're getting into
• 0:29
  the workforce disruption tearing through defence
• 0:32
  B2B, specifically why corporate loyalty has collapsed,
• 0:36
  what the self -employment era means for a sector
• 0:38
  that runs on clearances and long -term commitment,
• 0:41
  and what defence corporations actually have to
• 0:43
  do to win top -tier talent back. By the end of
• 0:47
  this episode you'll understand the structural
• 0:49
  forces behind this crisis and what a real fix
• 0:52
  looks like. And the person I want to dig into
• 0:55
  all of this with knows this space deeply. So
• 0:57
  let's get right into it. Walk me through. So
• 1:00
  the picture is pretty stark. The Vital Signs
• 1:02
  2026 survey, which goes out to US defense industry
• 1:05
  members every year, found that 56 % of respondents
• 1:08
  said it was somewhat or very difficult to hire
• 1:11
  cleared workers. And that same 56 % figure showed
• 1:14
  up for skilled trade workers. And again, for
• 1:17
  STEM workers, three categories, same number,
• 1:20
  three years in a row. Wait, the exact same percentage
• 1:22
  across all three categories? Exactly. And that
• 1:25
  consistency is actually the alarming part. It's
• 1:28
  not a blip. It's a structural condition. The
• 1:30
  Amtech 2026 benchmark report puts the industry
• 1:34
  -wide attrition rate at around 15%, which AIA
• 1:37
  and McKinsey note is more than double the cross
• 1:39
  -industry average. More than double. So people
• 1:42
  are leaving defense at twice the rate they're
• 1:44
  leaving other industries. Right. And the Vital
• 1:47
  Signs survey is pretty direct about why. Defense
• 1:50
  companies, because of regulations that limit
• 1:51
  their profits and cap wages, have not been able
• 1:54
  to keep up with pay increases in the commercial
• 1:56
  sector. There used to be a wage premium in defense,
• 1:59
  the idea being that working on national security
• 2:01
  was both meaningful and financially competitive.
• 2:04
  That premium has been erased. So the industry
• 2:07
  that once attracted the nation's best engineers
• 2:09
  and cleared professionals by paying them well
• 2:12
  can no longer do that? That's exactly what the
• 2:15
  National Defense Magazine's Vital Signs 26 piece
• 2:18
  says. And it creates this brutal competitive
• 2:20
  dynamic. Defense doesn't operate in isolation.
• 2:23
  It's competing with tech companies, commercial
• 2:25
  aerospace, cybersecurity startups, all of them
• 2:28
  for the same pool of qualified workers. And those
• 2:31
  sectors don't have the same wage constraints.
• 2:33
  OK, so before we get into what defense companies
• 2:36
  should do about it, I want to zoom out a bit
• 2:38
  because this isn't just a defense problem, right?
• 2:40
  The broader collapse of corporate loyalty is
• 2:42
  the backdrop here. How did we get to a place
• 2:45
  where workers, especially younger workers, just
• 2:48
  don't feel any obligation to stay? Yeah, and
• 2:51
  this is where the history really matters. There
• 2:53
  was a period, mid -20th century, that analysts
• 2:56
  sometimes call the golden age of employee loyalty.
• 3:00
  Companies offered job security, steady wage growth,
• 3:03
  retirement benefits. Workers gave long -term
• 3:05
  dedication in return. The social contract was
• 3:08
  clear. You stay. We take care of you. the gold
• 3:11
  watch at retirement kind of era. Exactly that.
• 3:14
  And Rick Garlick, who's a consulting partner
• 3:16
  at WorkProud and led their major study on this,
• 3:19
  put it really well. He said, and I'm quoting
• 3:21
  here, That's a pretty striking thing to say about
• 3:35
  something that used to be completely normal.
• 3:37
  So what broke it? What actually ended that era?
• 3:40
  The analysis from LinkedIn, a piece by Gulshan
• 3:42
  Verma, traces it back to the 1980s. That's when
• 3:45
  companies started engaging in large -scale corporate
• 3:48
  restructuring, mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing.
• 3:51
  Employees who had given decades to a company
• 3:53
  found themselves laid off with little warning
• 3:55
  or compensation. And when workers see that happen
• 3:58
  to long -serving colleagues, the implicit promise
• 4:01
  of reciprocal loyalty just shatters. So employers
• 4:04
  broke the contract first? That's the argument,
• 4:07
  yeah. And it's a compelling one. The Verma analysis
• 4:10
  is pretty direct. It says employers are largely
• 4:13
  to blame for the erosion of loyalty as a beneficial
• 4:15
  attribute in the workplace. Short -term profit
• 4:18
  motives, restructuring, and then the rise of
• 4:20
  the gig economy all compounded it. Companies
• 4:23
  like Uber and Lyft popularized a model of work
• 4:25
  that explicitly avoids traditional employment
• 4:28
  relationships in favor of short -term contract
• 4:30
  engagements. And that model spread way beyond
• 4:33
  ride -sharing? Way beyond. It normalized the
• 4:36
  idea that work is transactional. You show up,
• 4:39
  you deliver, you get paid, and neither side owes
• 4:42
  the other anything beyond that specific exchange.
• 4:44
  There's actually a real person in the CNBC reporting
• 4:47
  on this who kind of embodies that shift. Vera
• 4:50
  Lau, she's 27, she's worked at three different
• 4:52
  companies in three years, and she told CNBC,
• 4:56
  quote, I don't think loyalty pays off. It's all
• 4:59
  very transactional. You're only valuable for
• 5:01
  as long as they see you as valuable. If you don't
• 5:04
  learn and you don't earn, it's time to go. And
• 5:07
  she's not an outlier. The WorkProud study surveyed
• 5:10
  a thousand full -time employees and found that
• 5:12
  only 23 % of workers aged 42 and under express
• 5:16
  strong interest in staying with their companies
• 5:18
  long -term. For workers aged 30 and under, that
• 5:21
  dropped to 18%. So fewer than 1 in 5 workers
• 5:25
  under 30 actually want to stay long -term. And
• 5:27
  it gets more pointed than that. Only 11 % of
• 5:30
  workers aged 30 and under said they'd stay loyal
• 5:33
  to their employer if they found a similar role
• 5:35
  that paid more elsewhere. 11%. That's basically
• 5:39
  saying the moment a better offer shows up, I'm
• 5:42
  gone. Which, honestly, when you frame it that
• 5:45
  way, is that even irrational? Like, Jerome Zapata,
• 5:49
  who's the HR director at Kickstart Ventures,
• 5:51
  told CNBC that loyalty basically doesn't pay
• 5:54
  financially. Job hoppers get paid more because
• 5:57
  merit increases can only go so far, but when
• 6:00
  you join a new company, you can negotiate from
• 6:02
  a position of strength. Right. And Zapata said
• 6:04
  something else that really lands. During previous
• 6:07
  generations, if you stayed loyal, the organization
• 6:10
  would take care of you for life. But now, he
• 6:12
  said, the retirement benefits are not livable.
• 6:15
  So the incentive structure that made loyalty
• 6:17
  rational has been dismantled from both ends.
• 6:20
  OK, so now bring this back to defense specifically.
• 6:23
  Because Defence B2B has some unique wrinkles
• 6:25
  here that make this even more complicated, right?
• 6:28
  It's not just about pay. Yeah, Defence has layers
• 6:31
  on top of the general loyalty problem. The most
• 6:34
  obvious one is security clearances. You can't
• 6:36
  just walk into a cleared position, the process
• 6:39
  takes time, it's expensive, and there are over
• 6:42
  70 ,000 unfilled cleared positions right now,
• 6:45
  according to the Amtech 2026 benchmark report,
• 6:49
  citing AIA and PwC data. And that number is likely
• 6:52
  higher given how much defense spending has accelerated
• 6:54
  since that estimate was made. So the pipeline
• 6:57
  for cleared workers is already constrained, and
• 7:00
  then you layer on top of that the fact that cleared
• 7:02
  workers have options. They can go to commercial
• 7:04
  cybersecurity firms, defense tech startups, consulting
• 7:07
  firms, all of whom can pay more. Exactly. And
• 7:10
  the XPRS 2026 Aerospace and Defense Report from
• 7:14
  Manpower Group's Work Intelligence Lab frames
• 7:16
  this as a mission 2030 challenge. The idea being
• 7:19
  that if the industry doesn't close these tech
• 7:21
  talent gaps now, the pipeline problem compounds
• 7:24
  through the second quarter of the century. It's
• 7:27
  not a short -term hiring crunch. It's a structural
• 7:29
  threat. And meanwhile, defense spending is at
• 7:33
  record levels. The DOD's FY 2025 budget request
• 7:36
  was $849 .8 billion, according to the Jobs with
• 7:40
  DOD Defense Outlook. So you have this almost
• 7:43
  paradoxical situation, more money flowing into
• 7:46
  defense than ever, and yet the workforce crisis
• 7:49
  is getting worse. That paradox is real, and it's
• 7:52
  important. More budget doesn't automatically
• 7:54
  translate to more talent, especially when the
• 7:57
  regulatory structure caps what you can pay workers.
• 8:00
  The Vital Signs 2026 survey is explicit about
• 8:03
  this. Defense companies can't keep up with non
• 8:06
  -defense pay increases because of profit and
• 8:08
  wage limits tied to government contracting rules.
• 8:10
  So the money is there at the macro level, but
• 8:13
  it doesn't flow down to the individual worker
• 8:15
  in a way that makes defense competitive. That's
• 8:18
  the bind. And it's why the talent problem in
• 8:21
  defense is so hard to solve with just a budget
• 8:23
  increase. You need structural reform, not just
• 8:27
  more dollars. And there is actually movement
• 8:29
  on that front, right? The government has been
• 8:30
  trying to address this. There is. The acquisition
• 8:33
  workforce reform strategy published in February
• 8:36
  2026 is a direct response to this. It lays out
• 8:40
  a framework for building what it calls a highly
• 8:42
  skilled, adaptable acquisition workforce. And
• 8:45
  one of its explicit pillars is incentivizing
• 8:47
  the workforce, paying acquisition professionals
• 8:49
  well and holding them accountable for results.
• 8:52
  It also calls for fostering a culture of continuous
• 8:54
  learning and cross -functional collaboration.
• 8:57
  That sounds like the kind of language that could
• 9:00
  either be genuinely transformative or just very
• 9:03
  nice words in a PDF. Ha, fair. And that tension
• 9:06
  is real. The strategy itself acknowledges that
• 9:09
  reforming the acquisition workforce demands,
• 9:12
  quote, decisive empowerment and unambiguous motivation
• 9:15
  to uproot entrenched processes. That's pretty
• 9:18
  candid language for a government document. It's
• 9:21
  essentially admitting that the existing system
• 9:23
  has been resistant to change. The acquisition
• 9:26
  transformation strategy from the DOW also has
• 9:29
  this line about incentivizing the workforce,
• 9:31
  pay our acquisition professionals well and hold
• 9:33
  them responsible for getting the best deals for
• 9:35
  the warfighter no matter what it takes. That's
• 9:38
  a pretty direct statement. It is. And the framing
• 9:41
  of no matter what it takes is interesting because
• 9:43
  it signals a willingness to push against the
• 9:46
  regulatory constraints that have historically
• 9:48
  capped compensation. Whether that actually happens
• 9:50
  in practice is the open question. Let me push
• 9:53
  on something here. Because we've been talking
• 9:55
  about pay as the primary lever. But the post
• 9:58
  -COVID research on talent attraction suggests
• 10:00
  it's more complicated than that. The Integrated
• 10:03
  Benefits Institute's systematic review found
• 10:05
  that what workers want now includes flexible
• 10:07
  work arrangements, emphasis on wellbeing, culture,
• 10:11
  development opportunities, and communication.
• 10:14
  Is defense even capable of offering those things?
• 10:17
  That's the harder question. And honestly, some
• 10:20
  of those levers are genuinely difficult in a
• 10:22
  defense context. Flexible work arrangements are
• 10:25
  complicated when you're dealing with classified
• 10:27
  environments and CS if requirements. You can't
• 10:30
  just work from a coffee shop when you're handling
• 10:32
  TS and SCI material. Right. The nature of the
• 10:35
  work itself creates constraints that don't exist
• 10:37
  in, say, a software company. Exactly. But the
• 10:40
  other levers, culture, development, communication,
• 10:43
  career growth, those are absolutely within reach.
• 10:46
  And the research from Management Decision Journal,
• 10:48
  published in late 2024, makes the point that
• 10:51
  the pandemic fundamentally disrupted traditional
• 10:54
  leader -follower dynamics and created what they
• 10:56
  call significant threats to attachment security
• 10:59
  in workplace relationships. Rebuilding that attachment
• 11:02
  is now a strategic imperative, not a nice -to
• 11:04
  -have. Attachment security. That's an interesting
• 11:08
  frame for a workforce conversation. It is. And
• 11:11
  it maps directly onto what Kathleen Schulz from
• 11:14
  Gallagher said in the World at Work reporting.
• 11:16
  Being proud to work for their organization is
• 11:18
  a classic behavioral characteristic of engaged
• 11:21
  employees. That said, pride is not something
• 11:24
  you can mandate. You have to earn it. And defense
• 11:27
  companies, for a long time, assumed that mission
• 11:29
  and patriotism would do that work for them. And
• 11:32
  that assumption is no longer holding? Not for
• 11:35
  the generation that's entering the workforce
• 11:37
  now. The World at Work research found that while
• 11:40
  all generations reported similar levels of pride
• 11:43
  in their organization, the relationship between
• 11:45
  pride and actual loyalty was particularly strong,
• 11:49
  and particularly fragile, among younger workers.
• 11:52
  Pride alone doesn't translate to retention if
• 11:55
  the underlying conditions aren't there. There's
• 11:57
  also this interesting wrinkle with the defense
• 11:59
  sector specifically, the Coast Guard's new Robotics
• 12:02
  Mission Specialist rating, which the Jobs with
• 12:05
  DOD reporting covers. It's essentially creating
• 12:08
  a government -funded training pipeline that produces
• 12:10
  operators with hands -on robotics experience,
• 12:13
  and then those people can transition to the private
• 12:15
  sector. So defense is inadvertently training
• 12:19
  talent for its own competitors. That's a really
• 12:21
  sharp observation. And it's not unique to robotics.
• 12:24
  The defense sector has historically been a training
• 12:26
  ground. You get your clearance, you get your
• 12:28
  specialized skills, and then the commercial sector
• 12:30
  offers you more money to bring those skills over.
• 12:33
  The jobs with DoD piece on emerging defense careers
• 12:36
  in 2026 notes that defense contractors like Lockheed
• 12:39
  Martin are actively recruiting AI and machine
• 12:42
  learning engineers, but so is every major tech
• 12:44
  company. And the National Defense Authorization
• 12:47
  Act allocated $30 billion to cyber security according
• 12:50
  to that same reporting. So there's massive demand
• 12:53
  for cyber talent inside defense, but the people
• 12:56
  with those skills have enormous leverage to go
• 12:58
  elsewhere. Enormous leverage. Entry -level cybersecurity
• 13:01
  positions in defense start around $52 ,500 annually
• 13:05
  according to the jobs with DoD data. Experienced
• 13:08
  analysts command substantially more, but the
• 13:11
  commercial sector is competing hard for those
• 13:13
  same people. And without the wage flexibility
• 13:15
  to match, defense is always going to be fighting
• 13:18
  uphill. So what does a real fix actually look
• 13:21
  like? Not the aspirational language in a strategy
• 13:24
  document, but the actual mechanics of rebuilding
• 13:26
  trust and attracting top -tier talent back to
• 13:29
  defense B2B. I think it has to start with honesty
• 13:32
  about what broke the relationship. The Verma
• 13:34
  analysis on LinkedIn is pretty clear. Employers
• 13:37
  broke the social contract first. Decades of restructuring,
• 13:41
  downsizing, and short -term profit prioritization
• 13:43
  created a workforce that rationally concluded
• 13:46
  loyalty doesn't pay. Defense companies can't
• 13:49
  just ask for loyalty back without acknowledging
• 13:51
  that history. So it's not just a compensation
• 13:54
  problem, it's a credibility problem. Exactly.
• 13:58
  And the Integrated Benefits Institute's post
• 14:00
  -COVID retention review points to some concrete
• 14:02
  levers, increased communication with employees,
• 14:05
  a genuine focus on career development and growth,
• 14:08
  and revived onboarding processes that treat the
• 14:11
  first year as critical to long -term retention.
• 14:13
  These aren't revolutionary ideas, but they require
• 14:16
  consistent execution, which is where a lot of
• 14:19
  organizations fall short. The acquisition workforce
• 14:21
  reform strategy also talks about fostering a
• 14:24
  culture of continuous learning and cross -functional
• 14:27
  collaboration, which, if you actually implement
• 14:29
  that, starts to look a lot more like what the
• 14:31
  commercial sector offers. Right. And that's the
• 14:33
  competitive play. Defense can't always win on
• 14:36
  salary, but it can win on mission, on the scale
• 14:39
  and complexity of the problems being solved,
• 14:41
  and on career development if it actually delivers
• 14:44
  on those promises rather than just putting them
• 14:46
  in a strategy document. There's also the question
• 14:49
  of what the Deloitte 2026 Aerospace and Defense
• 14:53
  Outlook describes as a new era of growth powered
• 14:56
  by AI and digital sustainment. If defense companies
• 15:00
  can position themselves as genuinely cutting
• 15:02
  edge, not just bureaucratic legacy institutions,
• 15:06
  that changes the talent calculus. It does. And
• 15:09
  the US Army's creation of the 49B AI and ML officer
• 15:13
  concentration, where officers operationalize
• 15:16
  AI -enabled systems across warfighting functions,
• 15:19
  is a signal that defense is trying to modernize
• 15:21
  its identity, not just its technology. If you're
• 15:24
  a young engineer who wants to work on genuinely
• 15:26
  hard AI problems at scale, that's a compelling
• 15:29
  pitch. But only if the culture and compensation
• 15:31
  actually support it. Otherwise, it's just a recruiting
• 15:34
  pitch that doesn't survive contact with reality.
• 15:37
  And that's the credibility gap. The Expirus 2026
• 15:40
  report frames this as a challenge to the industry's
• 15:43
  long -standing approach to talent. That approach,
• 15:46
  which assumed mission alone would attract and
• 15:48
  retain people, is no longer sufficient. The industry
• 15:51
  has to fundamentally rethink how it values and
• 15:54
  treats its workforce. And the stakes of not doing
• 15:56
  that are genuinely high. This isn't just a business
• 15:59
  problem, it's a national security problem. If
• 16:02
  you can't staff the defence industrial base,
• 16:05
  you can't deliver the capabilities the warfighter
• 16:07
  needs. The Acquisition Workforce Reform Strategy
• 16:10
  says exactly that. It frames the workforce crisis
• 16:13
  as a direct threat to the ability to deliver
• 16:15
  warfighting capabilities at speed and scale.
• 16:18
  The language is urgent. War footing, speed of
• 16:21
  relevance. The government is treating this as
• 16:23
  a crisis. The question is whether the industry
• 16:26
  follows. And whether the regulatory environment
• 16:29
  actually changes to give defense companies the
• 16:31
  tools they need to compete on compensation. That's
• 16:34
  the structural piece that no amount of culture
• 16:36
  work can fully substitute for. You can build
• 16:38
  a great culture, offer development, communicate
• 16:41
  well, and still lose people to a tech company
• 16:43
  that pays 40 % more. The Vital Signs 2026 survey
• 16:47
  is clear. The wage premium that once made defense
• 16:50
  the destination for top talent is gone. Rebuilding
• 16:54
  it requires regulatory change, not just organizational
• 16:57
  will. So when you step back from all of this,
• 17:00
  the 70 ,000 unfilled cleared positions, the 15
• 17:04
  % attrition rate, the 18 % of workers under 30
• 17:08
  who actually want to stay long term, what does
• 17:11
  this really come down to? It comes down to a
• 17:13
  broken compact. The defense industry, and really
• 17:17
  corporate America broadly, spent decades dismantling
• 17:19
  the conditions that made loyalty rational. Restructuring,
• 17:23
  downsizing, wage stagnation, short -term thinking.
• 17:26
  And now it's a surprise that workers have internalized
• 17:29
  exactly the lesson those actions taught. Protect
• 17:31
  yourself, because the institution won't. And
• 17:34
  the defense sector has a uniquely hard version
• 17:37
  of this problem, because it can't just throw
• 17:39
  money at it the way a tech company can. Right.
• 17:42
  So the path forward has to be multi -dimensional.
• 17:45
  Regulatory reform to restore wage competitiveness.
• 17:47
  Genuine investment in culture, development and
• 17:50
  career growth, not just as talking points, but
• 17:52
  as measurable commitments. And an honest reckoning
• 17:55
  with the fact that trust, once broken, takes
• 17:57
  time and consistent action to rebuild. There's
• 18:00
  no shortcut. And the acquisition workforce reform
• 18:03
  strategies framing of accountability and performance
• 18:05
  excellence, clear metrics, transparency, rewarding
• 18:09
  high performers, that's actually part of what
• 18:11
  younger workers say they want. They want to know
• 18:14
  their contributions matter and are recognized.
• 18:17
  Exactly. And that's where defense has a genuine
• 18:20
  opportunity. The mission is real. The problems
• 18:23
  are consequential. If the industry can pair that
• 18:26
  with the conditions that make talented people
• 18:28
  feel valued and invested in, not just used, it
• 18:30
  can compete. But it has to actually do it, not
• 18:33
  just say it. Here's what I keep coming back to.
• 18:36
  Vera Lau, 27 years old, three companies in three
• 18:39
  years, said something that I think is the clearest
• 18:41
  diagnosis of this whole situation. She said,
• 18:47
  Our lives are not built around it anymore. That's
• 18:49
  not laziness. That's a generation that watched
• 18:52
  the social contract get shredded and decided
• 18:54
  to respond rationally. And Defense B2B, more
• 18:58
  than almost any other sector, needs workers who
• 19:01
  are deeply committed, who will go through the
• 19:03
  clearance process, who will work on complex,
• 19:05
  long -horizon problems, who will stay long enough
• 19:08
  to build institutional knowledge. You cannot
• 19:10
  build that kind of workforce on a purely transactional
• 19:12
  relationship. You need people who believe in
• 19:15
  what they're doing and believe the institution
• 19:17
  believes in them. So the industry that builds
• 19:19
  the tools of national security now has to do
• 19:21
  the harder work of rebuilding something more
• 19:23
  fundamental, the trust of the people it needs
• 19:26
  to build those tools. That's it. And the data
• 19:28
  is pretty unambiguous about what happens if it
• 19:31
  doesn't. A 15 % attrition rate that's more than
• 19:33
  doubled across industry average. Over 70 ,000
• 19:37
  cleared positions unfilled. The same three hiring
• 19:39
  categories, cleared, skilled trades, STEM, flagged
• 19:43
  as critically difficult for three consecutive
• 19:44
  years. the trend line is not moving in the right
• 19:47
  direction. And the Deloitte 2026 outlook describes
• 19:51
  this as a new era of growth for aerospace and
• 19:53
  defence, powered by AI, digital sustainment,
• 19:57
  rising demand. So the opportunity is real. The
• 20:00
  question is whether the workforce will be there
• 20:02
  to capture it. That's the central tension. Record
• 20:05
  defence budgets, record demand, record technological
• 20:08
  ambition, and a workforce that is walking out
• 20:10
  the door at twice the rate of any other industry.
• 20:13
  The spending power is there. The strategic vision
• 20:15
  is there. What's missing is the human infrastructure
• 20:18
  to execute it. So here's the thing that I think
• 20:20
  should linger with anyone listening to this,
• 20:23
  especially if you're in defence B2B or in any
• 20:26
  B2B sector dealing with this talent crunch. The
• 20:29
  gold watch is gone. Nobody expects it anymore.
• 20:32
  But what workers do expect, what the data shows
• 20:35
  they will stay for, is a workplace that actually
• 20:37
  invests in them, communicates honestly with them
• 20:40
  and gives them room to grow. That's not a revolutionary
• 20:44
  ask. It's the original deal. The industry just
• 20:47
  has to be willing to honor it again. And the
• 20:49
  cost of not honoring it is already visible in
• 20:51
  the numbers. 70 ,000 unfilled cleared positions
• 20:54
  isn't an abstraction. It's 70 ,000 gaps in the
• 20:57
  capability the defense industrial base is supposed
• 21:00
  to deliver. Every one of those is a mission that's
• 21:03
  slower, a contract that's delayed, a warfighter
• 21:05
  who's waiting. The talent crisis is a national
• 21:08
  security crisis, and it has a human solution.
• 21:11
  We started this episode with a number that should
• 21:13
  have stopped you cold, 2 .1 million jobs, a trillion
• 21:17
  dollars in economic activity, and 70 ,000 positions
• 21:20
  that nobody is filling. Now you know why. And
• 21:23
  more importantly, you know what it would actually
• 21:25
  take to change it. Thanks for being here on Copilot
• 21:29
  Podcasts. And if this one made you think differently
• 21:31
  about loyalty, trust, and what the defence sector
• 21:33
  is really up against, share it with someone who
• 21:36
  needs to hear it.