Barrons article

[pharmatrope1234]

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First time I've seen a major publication discuss this:
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052970204023504576331780926641112.html

 

[1ive2die]

First time I've seen a major publication discuss this:
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052970204023504576331780926641112.html

Sounds like chains are poised to pounce on the pharmacist surplus and drive wages down. No surprise there.

 

[gotdrugs]

Sounds like chains are poised to pounce on the pharmacist surplus and drive wages down. No surprise there.

Technically the article doesn't seem to mention "decreasing" wages. Just not going up anymore. (which in real dollars is decreasing, blah blah blah, i know)

It's not surprising, and from a purely economic standpoint, you really can't fault them.

Wages skyrocketed during the shortage, I went from making 50,000/yr at the infancy of the shortage (WAGs and the other chains was paying about 5-10k/yr more) and in about 5 years my salary doubled. That's an average increase of ~14+%/yr each and every year for 5 years. I went into pharmacy school with the thoughts of making 50-60k per year. Now I make more than twice that. I've been fortunate (knock on wood, so far) in my career.

I'm just grateful the only debt of significance (wife has a student loan at 2.5% interest we are just making minimum payments on) I have is my mortgage which would be manageable even if I received a pay-cut.

 

[PharmD RPh]

I actually got a raise this year which I was very grateful for. It only amounted to 1.1% increase in pay, but I'll take it. A few years ago, I was getting close to 4%. So the article is right in line. Also, consider the fact that pharmacies are not having to pay OT at 1.5 hourly rate now do to the influx of new grads. I'd expect raises to stay around where they are, even though 1.1% is not with inflation.

 

[jnmnh]

If you can't see the article because of the paywall, you can see the whole thing on google's cache of the page here:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...d=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com