Who'd have thunk it...
Apparently sacking huge numbers of your middle level staff to replace them with lower paid new recruits, or better still trying to replace them with unpaid volunteers, doesn't seem to have worked out as planned.
Unfortunately most people bright enough to be useful to the forces pay attention to things like a habit of large work force cuts of those who've been there for a while and who are starting to earn a half decent salary, and decide they might be better off elsewhere.