Sailors, soldiers, airmen and women are the heart of the NZDF s operational capabilities. The NZDF is a major employer of New Zealanders.
Service personnel are expensive to recruit, train and retain.
The military and technical skills they need in order to conduct combat operations successfully, and with the least risk to themselves, are expensive to impart. Those skills also take long periods to be effectively developed. These considerations are part of the process of defining force structures and balancing the application of resources to military tasks. This makes it especially important that the Defence Force retains the people it recruits and gains a satisfactory return of service for the considerable training investment it makes in them. New re-engagement and retention incentive schemes have been introduced to foster the retention of military personnel who would otherwise be lost to the Defence Force.