Calm down pilotchute. The person who told me the hold pool had shrunk was actually a cadet who was due to finish training in a couple of months. Seeing as the training takes at least 18 months, it would be stupid to start training based solely on this advice because the hold pool would have changed by the time I finished my training.
It doesn't take much to work out that CTC and OAA are profit making organisations - I for one have always ignored their "statistics". Asking about meaningful employment would probably be a waste of time - they're never going to turn round and say "only 32% of our ex cadets are earning above £16k a year", are they?