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"Under New Minister, Recruitment Continues to Struggle"Sopo
Deputy Editor
Op-Ed
Since being confirmed by the Senate 10 days ago on October 13, Minister of Recruitment Bri Shakespeare has already faced sharp criticism over the status of recruitment in Europeia. Bri is the third minister of recruitment this term, following the unfortunate resignations of Carathetopia and Snowball earlier in the term. Given the amount of turnover, Bri is facing a monumental task: turn around consistently tepid recruitment numbers and build Europeia's population back up after falling from over 1,000 nations to (currently) 847 in the past year.
Five days after his initial confirmation by the Senate, Senator Calvin Coolidge pointed out that Minister Bri had not logged onto the forum since the previous Saturday, which was during the confirmation hearing. First Minister Pichtonia came to Bri's defense, pointing out that "Bri is indeed around and I've talked to him daily. His forum activity has never been to the standard of many of us active forum users and that's something we've tackled through various means in the last term and will try to get into again this time around." Bri himself noted that the ministry needed a lot of work and that he had been in talks "behind the scenes" to get things up and running.
We are now ten days out from the good minister's confirmation, and the situation is looking rather bleak. Despite an upbeat opening address on Saturday, October 19, only 59 telegrams have been sent between two recruiters (Maowi and Xecrio) since the new recruiting week began that same day. Perhaps most shocking is that, since taking office, Minister Bri has not sent a single recruitment telegram. While the minister reassured the public both in the Grand Hall and in his opening address, it appears that the minister has not yet turned his words into actions.
First Minister Pichtonia, meanwhile, has also faced increasing criticism over the status of the ministry this term. In the aforementioned Grand Hall thread, Deputy Chief of State HEM laid the criticism over recruiting squarely at Pichtonia's feet: "For what it's worth, I think the criticism in this thread, to the extent it's deserved, probably should've been directed to the First Minister more than the newly-minted Minister. I love Pichtonia, but we're not struggling in recruitment because Bri needs a week to get up and running (very typical and normal). We're struggling because we've been struggling all term."
With less and less time remaining, the first minister and the minister of recruitment will need to step it up in order to turn things around this term.