Yuuup, same story each year. AF has a two main problems with retention: QoL and Pay.
QoL: They spend 10 years wringing an aircrew member to the bone. Don't get me wrong its an absolutely awesome job but 12-13 hr days wear on you and the family. Sprinkle in your mandatory downrange deployments to be the snacko or something else equally useless and you have a recipe for people who just need a change of pace. To the AF's credit they have taken some of the unnecessary additional duties off our shoulders but that's a band aid on a bullet wound. AF is in a death spiral of rated officer manning. We have 6 guys doing the job of 10 people. One of the guys gets fed up and punches out....now you've got 5. AFPC puts a 6th person back in but everyone keeps getting more jaded.
It all comes down to our military end strength that gets assigned by congress. We can't keep asking our people to do more with less. Either reduce the requirements for our military force or give us more people & funding. Can't have it both ways.
Pay: There
IS a dollar amount that will keep pilots in, the AF just doesn't want to pay it. Nor do I blame them. It'd be a lot. Plenty of studies have been done on this, but it's the same answer the AF doesn't want to hear.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2415.html
DoD need to pay dudes more to keep them in and it needs to keep pace with inflation. Neither of these will happen, so the military will keep going from economic downturn to downturn hoping to keep people and they'll pretend they solved the issue each time.
Okay...diatribe done.