Suicide in the U.S. military rose in 2023, marking a continuation of a deeply concerning trend, according to the Pentagon’s latest data.

Approximately 523 servicemembers died by suicide in 2023 compared to 493 in 2022, according to the Pentagon’s annual report on the matter released Thursday. The problem has become of greater and greater concern for the Pentagon as rates have risen since 2011, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin addressing the matter to the press on Thursday.

The new data “urgently demonstrate the need for the Department to redouble its work in the complex fields of suicide prevention and postvention,” Austin said in his address, according to The Associated Press. Austin noted that the Department of Defense is working through various measures to address the problem. “There’s still much more work to do, and we won’t let up.”

Between 2021 and 2022, there was a downtick in military suicides, but the number swung back up between 2022 and 2023, according to the Pentagon report. The majority of the suicides in 2023 were young enlisted males.

The Pentagon described the increase in suicides as “not statistically significant,” meaning “that experts who analyze the data cannot be certain this is a true change and, instead, changes from one year to the next could be due to natural variations in data.”

Austin and defense officials are working to address the challenge, including through improving access to mental healthcare for servicemembers and bolstering gun safety measures, according to the AP. More staff are also being hired to help achieve that goal.

A Pentagon commission suggested a number of other gun safety measures, but defense officials chose not to implement them, instead choosing to focus on “incentiv[izing]” better firearm securement and providing more storage locations, according to the AP.

Some of the Pentagon’s ideas have yet to be put in place, defense officials told the AP.

Recruiting and retention has also been a major issue for the military, with several branches missing their recruiting targets in recent years amid reports that an increasing number of servicemembers and veterans are choosing not to recommend service.

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