Reasons why personnel left the Norwegian Armed Forces in 2019 and 2020

In this report, we describe a survey we conducted among military personnel who left the Norwegian Armed Forces during the period 2019–2020. Our goal in this survey was to find out why the personnel chose to leave. The survey was similar to a previous one, which we conducted among personnel who left the Norwegian Armed Forces during the period 2016–2018.

Our results show that most often, the personnel left the Armed Forces to start education or to start a new job. They were often not satisfied with their careers, or their future career possibilities, within the organization. However, many of those who left were interested in returning to the Armed Forces later.

The results of our current study are quite similar to those in the previous study. This indicates that the reasons for leaving are about the same now as they were a few years back.

In this report, we also suggest a questionnaire the Armed Forces could use in a systematic mapping of why personnel choose to leave the organization.