What's with the job cut/salary cut threads lately?

[confettiflyer]

Am I missing something big picture that's going on? I informally polled about 8 of my close RPh friends (all hospital FYI) and they're all swamped at work from previous staffing cuts from the late-2000s, hiring has picked up locally (SF Bay Area, FYI unemployment rate is like 4% in SF proper), a few hospitals have opened brand new facilities/expanded (Kaiser - 2 new hospitals in addition to their main one that recently opened, UCSF Mission Bay campus, CPMC under construction), and I've seen an uptick in agency requests for coverage in both rural areas (to be expected) and areas within 30mins of big cities (surprising).

I didn't ask about salary except for 2 of them, and they said their cost of living adjustments were stable at ~3% and both mentioned merit raises of 3-5% within the last 6 months (one is union and i think that's negotiated already).

So....

a) am I just in some California bubble here and the rest of you really have it that bad? or...
b) it's just a few complainers on an online forum that makes it seem like the entire country is going down the tubes? or...
c) some combination of both?

So yeah this thread is a discussion about the discussion.

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[OmiPharmD]

My health system is trying to cut costs overall. It's not just pharmacy feeling the pain. Although they did use the pharmacist surplus coming out of Chicago to greatly reduce what we offer new graduates and adjust the pharmacist pay scale downward. If your current pay rate is above that range you don't have to take a pay cut but you can't get a raise either. At the same time we are expanding pharmacy services. In this area your typical Wag or CVS new grad starts around $125,000. Most grads so far still choose the hybrid clinical job over retail. Especially if they just completed a PGY1 and have no desire to deal with the general public.

 

[BMBiology]

^ why is your hospital cutting back? Does obamacare have anything to do with it?

 

[Dred Pirate]

we all think the sky is falling

but seriously hospitals are hurting for money and we are all feeling the pinch of the trickle down effect

 

[Its Z]

we all think the sky is falling

but seriously hospitals are hurting for money and we are all feeling the pinch of the trickle down effect

Actually, health system finance is little more complex than that. Sure, many hospitals are seeing a decrease in reimbursement. But this happened during the Fee for service to DRG prospective payment system conversion days in the early 80s. Today, many hospitals are consolidating and due to the Affordable Care Act and Accountable Care Organization movement, only the strong will survive. But generally speaking, health systems have many different incomes... we pharmacists only look at the operations income of the hospital operation as the gospel. But if you look at the global/overall income, health systems make a load of money from their real-estate and investment side... I doubt large systems today are hurting for money. Sure, they may not meet budget. But that doesn't mean they're losing money.

Strong health system will no only survive, they will grow. Weak will die. And that's no different for pharmacists.

 

[OmiPharmD]

^ why is your hospital cutting back? Does obamacare have anything to do with it?

Our health system is growing. I don't think we are in bad shape at all. They have picked up several smaller hospitals recently and are trying to better align outpatient and inpatient services. More than likely they realized the pay and benefits were higher than similar (smaller) hospitals in the region.

 

[MatCauthon]

I wrote my thread due to my own frustration where I work. Management is extremely aggressive in getting what they want. Some of the big hospital and pharmacy execs are getting six-figure bonuses for meeting and exceeding their expense quotas. Many of these not-for-profit hospital chains are now being operated like they are a fortune-500 company. Some hospital chains are accumulating hundreds of million or more in the bank. Yet, it is rather odd they are saying we are not meeting are financial goals and that more cuts will need to be made.

The director of pharmacy openly said during the annual meeting that since there are so many new graduates coming out that we don't need to offer such a high salary any more. This director also said that our pharmacists are being over-compensated compared to the market, and that cuts will be made so that pay better reflects the market-average. The market-average is whatever they want it to be so that they can better achieve their quotas. This is also a slippery slope, because if another hospital chain cuts benefits, our hospital can use that information to say that the 'market-average' has decreased.

 

[Its Z]

I wrote my thread due to my own frustration where I work. Management is extremely aggressive in getting what they want. Some of the big hospital and pharmacy execs are getting six-figure bonuses for meeting and exceeding their expense quotas. Many of these not-for-profit hospital chains are now being operated like they are a fortune-500 company. Some hospital chains are accumulating hundreds of million or more in the bank. Yet, it is rather odd they are saying we are not meeting are financial goals and that more cuts will need to be made.

The director of pharmacy openly said during the annual meeting that since there are so many new graduates coming out that we don't need to offer such a high salary any more. This director also said that our pharmacists are being over-compensated compared to the market, and that cuts will be made so that pay better reflects the market-average. The market-average is whatever they want it to be so that they can better achieve their quotas. This is also a slippery slope, because if another hospital chain cuts benefits, our hospital can use that information to say that the 'market-average' has decreased.

Simply put your director is a piece of ****. He/she's your boss not a leader. He/she's a pharmacist but not pharmacentric. He/she won't mount to much and in the end, will finish out his/her career completely unfulfilled.

 

[Deja]

yes there are jobs in rural areas of cali... but from what I seen and heard, no cali student will even apply to those jobs, they all want to stay in the big 3 of cali, the rural areas are staffed by foriegn graduates and out of states graduates, I know a couple people trying to gt out but can't, but i'm also not sure how hard they are applying to jobs

 

[confettiflyer]

yes there are jobs in rural areas of cali... but from what I seen and heard, no cali student will even apply to those jobs, they all want to stay in the big 3 of cali, the rural areas are staffed by foriegn graduates and out of states graduates, I know a couple people trying to gt out but can't, but i'm also not sure how hard they are applying to jobs

My PGY-1 friend is getting bonus money + loan repayment thrown at her if she relocates to the rural central valley, but she's getting decent traction in the "big 3" that you're referring to (I'm assuming you mean SF, LA, and SD).

 

[WVUPharm2007]

We just hired 4 new pharmacists in my district.