Try playing with an easier difficulty setting. It will help you retain your personnel, and also you start with more people in the "Hire Personnel" list, so you can recrew if you lose a few troops.
Unfortunately, it seems like repopulating the list isn't implemented yet, so the people you get in the list at the beginning is the lot. Later, new people will appear in the list as the game progresses.
For now, you just have to not get your squad killed in order to complete 2.0-RC6 :roll:
-PsyW