Universal healthcare coverage along with cost cutting reforms are going to sharply increase the demand for pharmacists in the coming years. I suggest you all read up on what is happening on capitol hill. I follow the news every day, and I can tell you that it's probably a good bet that more and more insurers and the government itself are going to be pushing to get more people on drugs because they have shown to be statistically more effective than a lot of expensive procedures. Also, the impact of having 50 million more people covered will mean what, a 15% increase in patients in the healthcare system?? Best case situation (obviously false), that would open up 38,000 new pharmacist jobs. However new efficiency methods, the fact that uninsured are not the oldest (although they are some of the sickest), and that they might already be buying drugs, means that we probably wont see a 15% increase in pharmacist demand. Still, there's probably going to be a push to get more people on maintenance and preventative drugs, especially people who are already in the system who will be subjected to coverage cuts , will probably be pressured to go on drugs to save money over the long run instead of waiting until the end to get an expensive procedure.
So with 50 million more patients (all but guaranteed by congress, obama, and the insurance companies) , shouldnt we expect maybe another 15,000 pharmacy jobs to be created?? (a 4% increase in pharmacists?) For reference, for those of you who werent around. At the peak of the pharmacist shortage, when salaries were going up 10% per year... There was an estimated shortage of 10,000 pharmacists.. which still hasnt been fully taken care of.
Also, there are around 5000 pharmacists retiring every year. And the prescription volume demand is increasing by 3-6% per year as well (which has historically opened up 3000-6000 new jobs a year. And this is even before the baby boomers start dying!!.
And on another front.. retail chains are lobbiyng congress strongly to get reimbursement for MTM. I feel like something like that, a medical service that can save a lot of healthcare dollars while improving outcomes, seems like it will be something that gets pushed for as a part of healthcare reform. And if chains can get paid for MTM you can bet they're going to hire as many pharmacists as they can to make the maximum amount of profit.
You might say mail order will absorb all these new prescriptions... Well i'd like to see how profitable mail order becomes when the price of gas goes up to $5-6 a gallon.
Also, taking a look at the pharmacy manpower project, it doesnt look like demand is falling yet!
http://www.pharmacymanpower.com/index.html
Considering we are basically at the bottom of the world's worst recession/depression since 1930, and that approximately 10,000 pharmacists just graduated and took available jobs.. The fact that there is still a moderate shortage reported blows my mind. This is the worst time of year for finding a job.. and Also the worst the economy has ever been, and there's still hundreds if not thousands of pharmacy jobs open!! People complaining of saturation tick me off. Especially when they say something like "you cant get any job in this city or this city" .. The other day somebody was saying it was almost impossible to find a job in NYC, and then the next day, a cush NYC job was posted on the pharmacy board and had no takers!
Trust economists and labor market resarch.. not anecdotes. There are plenty of good links on here that lead to real, hard data that is both recent and well reasoned. It would take 20 minutes to find them again so i'm not going to do it now.. but i recommend looking for them. Just dont read any news sites' predictions. Look for actual studies done by pharmacists and economists.
Majority of my stats came from bureau of labor statistics. They keep track of the number of pharmacist jobs created, and number of people who retire each year, in different sectors of the healthcare economy.
www.bls.gov
