As a civilian who has worked directly with service personnel for nineteen years, I observed exactly the same when the RAAF went through their Commercial Support Program some time back. (To reduce costs, you replace a service person with a civilian and pay his company three times the salary paid to the service person.)
Personnel who were essentially redundant were offered sh#t postings or could take a position with the successful contractor at a salary that was reduced to take into account their pension benefits. Now I don't agree with the other (civvy) contributors to this thread about whinging service personnel.
Why the H*LL should the pension of a serviceman (or to be PC servicewoman) be deliberately used to add to the profit margin of the company employing them? The solution in OZ was to align service training and qualifications with civilian equivalents so that people left with that important piece of paper. (In some cases, that resulted in a lower standard of training and reduced competencies!) Even then the employers still reduced their pay offers to account for their pensions.
The military pension is intended to compensate for crap hours, terrible sub-standard accommodation, family disruption, separation for extended periods and carrying the continual risk of stopping the odd bullet. It definitely is not intended to reduce pay rates on separation.
Go get them, Funky!
Myself? I've retired and have my own comfortable pension.
Blax