I would like to first provide some context. We recruit annually to something called a strategic intake plan. It lays out that for each occupation and trade within the Canadian Forces we can recruit so many people. It's not just wide open; there are specific targets.
As you heard from the minister already, we've achieved many of those targets. In 35 of the trades and occupations we've already achieved our targets for this year. The overall target for this year was about 7,700. The last time we had to successfully achieve that volume was a long time ago.
So looking at the results at this time--which is not the best recruiting time of the year--we are at 75% of our target for this year. The best time to recruit, when we see most of the numbers come in, is in December, January, February, and March. We look at the recruiting period over the fiscal year. So overall we've had great success in many of the trades occupations.
We are still working hard. Particularly on the navy side there are some stressed trades, as I mentioned the last time I was here. These are trades that are more difficult to recruit, not because of what we do but because they are in such a high demand across the entire Canadian and international spectrum on both the military and civilian sides. We've had impressive numbers, in particular on the navy side. We have already recruited as many as we recruited last year in the naval electronics trades, and there are still four months left to go.
So overall we've had great success when it comes to the recruitment function.