Nip, put it this way, you had to be more academically qualified to become a Technician than you did to become a Cook, hence one of the differences in rates etc.
But more than that the wage structure was originally designed to equate over to that of Civi street. A Cook, Blanket Stacker, or Technician was paid on par with his civilian counterpart, this was to aid retention of such people in the services, you say the Technicians wage didn't decrease, but everyone else's increased, maybe it didn't at the time, but in the scheme of things now it now lags behind Civilian equivalents, hence the poor retention rate, where Cooks and Blanket Stackers are now on an artificially high wage in comparrison to their civilian conterparts, hence I bet there is not such a deficit in manning. Oddly the other one that may be lagging might be RAFP, though they probably are not direct equivalents "trade" wise.
Maybe they should have retained the JT rank instead of "demoting" it to SAC, that way a buffer in wages could have been retained as a JT is a higher rank than a SAC Cook.
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Last edited by NutLoose; 15th Aug 2014 at 11:25.