The actual pay increase is 13% or less for everyone who isn't 1st year private (or equivalent rank). The rest is in additional benefits, such as Land Duty Allowance, domestic operations pay, etc. Still a decent increase overall.

That said, this barely keeps military pay in line with inflation at this point. While military pay does get small yearly increases, they've lagged way behind how much more expensive everything is getting. All in all, much needed, and honestly still a little underwhelming.

There are some substantial amounts ear-marked for sign-up and re-signing bonuses for trades that are particularly struggling for members, which might help a bit with recruiting and retention. Unfortunately it doesn't solve either of the other two huge impediments to recruitment and retention. The first is that the entire process takes far, far too long. Most people cannot wait a year to get a job. There has been some improvement in this area with the move to process security clearances while people are in basic (because, let's face it, you learn absolutely nothing in basic that's sensitive information) but there still needs to be serious improvement in how quickly things are processed. In particular, Ottawa's handling of medical files needs to be completely overhauled. Right now it takes way too fucking long to sign off on fitness for service.

The second big issue is that the structures of military life were established at a time when families lived on one income; that meant that you could, as a service member, haul your family off to whatever place you get posted and things would basically be OK. Yeah, relocating always sucks, but it didn't come with the added difficulty of your partner likely needing to find a new job. The best solution the present day army has for this is "Oh, well, uh, we'll find them some kind of civilian admin role that pays dogshit." If your partner has any profession more specialised than "Secretary", they're fucked, especially as most bases are located somewhere between Butt Fuck and Nowhere. So as soon as any service member marries, and especially if they have kids, asking them to relocate is often tantamount to asking them to quit. While intake is a problem, retention is an even bigger problem and this is a huge part of why. Unfortunately solving this problem is a lot trickier. I could get into some of the changes that would help, but this getting overlong already.

To be clear, I don't want anyone to think that everything is bad and not getting better. There have been improvements, especially with the update to the housing differential; moving from a flat percentage to setting the allowance based on pay is a massive improvement that really helps out lower ranks posted to places with higher rents (y'know, everywhere). And as I mentioned earlier, the changes to the security policy have helped speed up the recruitment process.

In all, there's still a lot that needs to change, but this is definitely a welcome step.

(Full disclosure: I am part of a military family.)