Can someone explain this job outlook!
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This question has been answered on this forum before. In fact, its been answered dozens (if not hundreds) of times in the past few weeks. No way a new (negative) study on pharmacy job outlook would go unnoticed for longer than 5 minutes 'round these parts before people start quoting it like gospel.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3687123/
The number of pharmacists graduating per year is over 14,000. The net increase in pharmacist positions in TEN years is way less than 10,000. 140,000+ students are graduating for 10,000- jobs (plus retirement and turnover). It's pretty damn simple.
The number of pharmacists graduating per year is over 14,000. The net increase in pharmacist positions in TEN years is way less than 10,000. 140,000+ students are graduating for 10,000- jobs (plus retirement and turnover). It's pretty damn simple.
With these statistics in mind, isn't a market correction (as is alluded to in the PubMed article you linked) bound to occur in a matter of one or two years? After all, won't it take less than 10 years for job market to feel the effects of having 14x too many pharmacists graduating than are needed?
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There will likely be a correction, but I highly doubt it will be a large enough one to preserve the future that pharmacy graduates deserve. It'll more likely be similar to what has happened to law schools in recent years- diminished class sizes, but generally business as usual.
So do you think it will actually get to the point where there will be ~130,000 pharmacists out of work in the next decade or so (taking into consideration the fact that the PubMed article predicts that there will be 140,000 pharmacists competing for only 10,000 jobs, which indicates an oversupply of 130,000 pharmacists)?
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There'll be a lot of pharmacists out of jobs. I'm not a damn psychic, I just have math to work with. It will be a substantial number greater than zero for sure.
Just out of curiosity, do you think any states/regions will be safe? (especially GA/AL)
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It will get to at least half that number because once the problem is apparent in the job market, everyone already in school will finish anyway.
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Slomin's shield and ADT are high quality security brands. They will keep any region safe.
LOL, so maybe that was a strange choice of words on my part. Of course, what I meant to ask was, are there any states/regions that are less likely to experience high pharmacist unemployment rates? Do you think traditionally undesirable areas will become just as saturated as the metro regions?
You might be able to find a job opening or two in Barrow, Alaska, a town that literally borders the Arctic Ocean and has no paved roads to nearby cities. It ranks for the 10th highest latitude in the world by city.
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For one, we forget to discount retiring pharmacists in these calculations. So while we WILL have an oversupply, it won't be (140,000 graduates - 10,000 jobs = 130,000 unemployed). Two, and while I'm trying not gender stereotype, the fact remains that women now make up 2/3rds of graduating pharmacists, and in aggregate women do not work a 1.0 FTE over the course of their career.
In addition, like in law, we will have an oversupply of entry level candidates, but not so much for specialized candidates or candidates with the magic word, of "experience". This is important for non-community positions. It's just that one will need to have several years experience or have PGY-2's for more normal hospital roles. For example, you want to staff in the cancer center? Well... better have a PGY-2 in oncology or have 5-10 years of oncology staffing experience. It's just going to lead to credential inflation for new hires.
In addition, like in law, we will have an oversupply of entry level candidates, but not so much for specialized candidates or candidates with the magic word, of "experience". This is important for non-community positions. It's just that one will need to have several years experience or have PGY-2's for more normal hospital roles. For example, you want to staff in the cancer center? Well... better have a PGY-2 in oncology or have 5-10 years of oncology staffing experience. It's just going to lead to credential inflation for new hires.
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Pharmacy is no different than any other health profession in this regard. Job openings will be more numerous in rural settings. Maybe if you're lucky you can hang out with me in a large rust belt city. And for the unicorns of the world there will always be a chance you can live in a closet in NYC or SF.
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If I remember correctly, didn't ACPE make it a requirement for schools to report employment data in order to stay accredited? Hopefully if that's true it doesn't mean they hike tuition to start school funded residency programs to keep students and count them as "employed."
These numbers concern me a lot. I wonder why job growth is so abysmally low especially after we were sold on "more prescriptions with aging population."
These numbers concern me a lot. I wonder why job growth is so abysmally low especially after we were sold on "more prescriptions with aging population."
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Yet the schools of pharmacy will continue pumping out graduates because, " ..there’s little incentive for schools to slow down this expansion. PharmD students are cash cows, taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and often committing to a longer course of study". (from the New Republic). This coupled with the fact a pharmacy program is way less costly to operate than say med or dental,.
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BLS is really slow to update. We've known, instinctively, those "slow growth" figures for YEARS on here.
So...if you go into pharmacy, have a backup career in hand. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Take some accounting and real estate classes, set up a side gig, which is really your life boat.
So...if you go into pharmacy, have a backup career in hand. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Take some accounting and real estate classes, set up a side gig, which is really your life boat.
For the projected sum of annual openings AND replacements, the annual projection is ~11,000 a year.
http://www.projectionscentral.com/Projections/LongTerm (cited by the BLS)
Currently, we're graduating around 14-15k pharmacists a year.
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Explain what? The field is saturated worse than optometry now.
And can these reports please STAHP with the aging baby boomer excuse for rationalizing more pharmacists? If anything, those in retail can attest that regardless that patient loads are increasing, retail is CUTTING staff and making pharmacy staff do a lot more with less resources.
And can these reports please STAHP with the aging baby boomer excuse for rationalizing more pharmacists? If anything, those in retail can attest that regardless that patient loads are increasing, retail is CUTTING staff and making pharmacy staff do a lot more with less resources.
A market correction will surely occur, but one or two years is way too fast. Saturation has been here for years in much of the country, and is finally hitting more rural areas pretty radially, yet there hasn't been a real correction yet. Fewer people are applying to pharmacy school, but schools are still filling their seats. When I applied, my school had four applicants for every seat. Last year, I think the number was something like 1.5 applicants per seat. It'll probably have to get really bad before there is any real correction.
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If only there was such an insurance that covered all these losses to our greedy friends in pharmacy education! Then we can truly say Nationwide is on your side ...
Agreed. I don't think we'll have a market correction in 15 years (the number usually used when describing boom/bust economic cycles). It has to be a lot more than that, unless there is serious regulation (doubtful) to curb the number of grads. Other fields that went through busto in the past did not have the potential to pump this many grads out in such a short time. Dental school costs $$$ because of equipment and clinic costs, so investors will more likely shy away from that endeavor than say pharm school, where all one needs is a building full of classrooms and a single compounding lab - a much cheaper alternative.
One other thing to keep in consider is the negative media exposure that the saturation will eventually afford the pharmacy profession. For example, I was never interested in going to law school, but I eventually heard about their saturation issues just by way of reading the general news (because eventually, it became something of a "front page" story). When the pharmacist oversupply becomes nationally renowned in a similar manner, I wonder what the various pharmacist representation groups will have to say in their defense? Because, after all, aren't they just totally ignoring the issue for now?
T
torontopharm
Even though fewer people are applying to Pharmacy schools, schools will have no trouble filling in seats for the foreseeable future until salaries drop to something like ~70k. Many pre-pharms are teenagers who got into this field solely to hit the 6 figure salaries at a young age, and they'll continue applying as long as there's a chance of a 100k salary. This sort of mindset won't change overnight. It's terrifying to imagine the amount of years it'll take for the "market correction" to take place.
Now I just wish I had applied to pharmacy school ~5 years ago when I had first considered it. Oh well... I'm just going to apply, hopefully get accepted, work as hard as I can, and obtain an intern position with a chain I'd like to have a career with as soon as I begin the program. I guess there isn't much else I can do (aside from simply not applying to pharmacy school, of course).
The median salary was about 50K when I graduated, and there were a lot of people who went into it for the same reason. Even back then (early 1990s), I had several classmates who never worked in the field until they started doing their internship hours.
I have also known two pharmacists who went to law school. One now works as an attorney for a health insurance company, and has kept her pharmacist license active. The other realized early in his L3 year that he really didn't want to be a lawyer after all, but he did graduate and took the bar exam, and went back to work at Walmart, who probably knows better than to try to screw him over, assuming he still works there (this was a few years ago).
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if you look at the law school model, granted i don't know all the facts, but there are plenty of garbage law schools that STILL exist. I don't know too many that closed down. The bar is still one of the harder exams to pass (based on % passed), and it's well known fact that to get a good job you better go to a top law school. Point is who ever keeps asking about when these newer pharm schools will close and the market correction occurs, the answer is: not anytime soon! I am not a DM, private pharmacy owner, but if i get a student from West Coast, Northstate, KGI, California Health, or Chapman applying for a job i don't know how much i would want to hire them.
Pharmacy isn't even in the top 25 for 2016 
https://www.glassdoor.com/Best-Jobs...paign=January2016_US&utm_content=BESTJOBS16US
https://www.glassdoor.com/Best-Jobs...paign=January2016_US&utm_content=BESTJOBS16US
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I think this is what everybody plans on doing. Just work hard to stand out and I'm sure you'll be fine.
Meh Barrow isn't that scary for some of us. I worked in Antarctica. I'd love to work up in Barrow.
To each their own. There are many people who shudder at the thought of living over 50 miles from Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, or NYC.
Those people need to put on their big boy pants, and/or stop crying about not getting $100K offer in a major metropolis right out of school.
