Bingo bango bongo. Although I still feel like the bulk of the impact is on retention and not recruitment.
I mean, I'm a pretty cynical guy. But apparently I'm not cynical enough. Because before the announcement of the pay adjustments / PLD/CFHD changes, I was damned sure that the raises that we'd be getting would be inadequate to stem the losses that we're seeing. But never in my wildest dreams did I think that Treasury Board would be stupid enough to come up with a "raise" that resulted in less net income for anyone, let alone something that amounted to a pay cut that basically directly targeted the people in high cost of living areas that are in the rank bands for which we're seeing the worst attrition problems.
I mean, sure, I didn't think they'd actually bandage the wounds properly. But I didn't expect them to "solve things" by rubbings salt in them. Boy did I feel silly.
But here we are. And of course, given that that was the "fix" that they did come up with, it's clear proof that there's no appetite whatsoever to actually solve any of the staffing issues that we have by government. No one's going to devote any resources towards it. The only things that the CAF can do are by doing things that doesn't require any additional money or any substantial changes to what we do, because the government's demands for operational output aren't decreasing at all either.
So of course, as a result, these "minor wins" are unfortunately the only things we have left to do. So I hope the RCAF likes their hats. Because there's not too much left in terms of stuff that we can do.
tl;dr The Navy's fucked, and will be especially fucked in 2030 once the CFHD runs out for those folks, and unfortunately rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic is the only thing we have the authority and resources to do. Likewise the other two elements (although in particular for this change I believe the Navy got hit the hardest).