Is anyone else really concerned about incoming freshmen?

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pfaction

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Class of 2017 or class of 2016, it's going to be a rocky, rocky jobs market for them. Is it even worth recommending people to go to pharmacy school anymore? There is literally 2000+ graduates per year nation wide and not enough spots to fill as it is now, imagine a few years from now.
 
Is there a profession that guarantees jobs upon graduating?
 
There was, and that's why we're pharmacists. Nursing was in short supply, so was PA's. MD's are going to hit a peak as well, I think, but it has a LOT of specializations.
 
people need to stop thinking that retail and hospital are the end all/be all of pharmacy.
 
pfaction said:
Class of 2017 or class of 2016, it's going to be a rocky, rocky jobs market for them. Is it even worth recommending people to go to pharmacy school anymore? There is literally 2000+ graduates per year nation wide and not enough spots to fill as it is now, imagine a few years from now.
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Ha...2000+ graduates. There are more people than that doing residencies every year now alone.

Hopefully as the economy recovers as a whole companies will begin expanding again and the older pharmacist retirement rate will pick up.
 
I assumed my number was low but I wasn't sure exactly how much. It was reported earlier there was 3500 "vacant" seats? It'd be filled in a year, and then cut.
 
Oh, I apologize. I think that when residencies for PGY-1 are saturated this topic will be relevant. See you all in 2014!
 
pfaction said:
Oh, I apologize. I think that when residencies for PGY-1 are saturated this topic will be relevant. See you all in 2014!
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lol, they got saturated years ago. get back in your delorean.
 
confettiflyer said:
people need to stop thinking that retail and hospital are the end all/be all of pharmacy.
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rxlea said:
This.
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To be fair, the vast majority of jobs are one of the two. I am not discounting people who carve out niches or explore other options but realistically most of us will end up in one of the two. Don't mean to be a debbie downer, just saying.
 
owlegrad said:
To be fair, the vast majority of jobs are one of the two. I am not discounting people who carve out niches or explore other options but realistically most of us will end up in one of the two. Don't mean to be a debbie downer, just saying.
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Agreed, about 75% of my class went to retail and the remainder picked up hospital jobs or did residency. Doom and gloom ....
 
pfaction said:
http://www.natmatch.com/ashprmp/prgstats.htm

150 out of 2000 didn't get filled.
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Those are the spots that were unable to be filled through the match. I'm certain all 150 disappeared quickly during the scramble to those 1250 candidates that didn't match.

Really the short of it is there were 1100 students that wanted a PGY1 position, but were unable to. I would say it is pretty saturated when ~1/3 of those entering the match are unable to obtain a position.

http://www.natmatch.com/ashprmp/
 
pfaction said:
http://www.natmatch.com/ashprmp/prgstats.htm

150 out of 2000 didn't get filled.
Click to expand...

1850 out of 2000 getting filled by the match combined with all the seekers who did not end up with a residency does not equal saturated? So until 2000 out of 2000 are filled by the match we will not be saturated?

I do appreciate that at least your beliefs are backed by actual data though, even if we slightly disagree about how to interpret it. 👍
 
....
...

2000 graduates per year?

I thought the # was more like 12,500.

The field is not doomed. But it is not a free ride anymore, and if you are going to take on a lot of debt to do it, you better have a good plan and/or be a really hard worker. If you are a cut above your classmates in either the classroom (grades -> residency) , or in the real world (work ethic and references -> hired first), you will survive. But you need to be on top of your game. .. That's not the same as being at the top of the heap.. but , be ready to excel and perform at your personal best. And have a plan. This is the advice i would give to new students or prospective applicants.
 
I already stated I underrated the numbers because I wasn't sure EXACTLY how much but I figured 2000 was respectable enough not to laugh at; a # we can all say is the minimum. I have the grades, I have the motivation, but I have no desire or real love for the profession. I love clinical pharmacy because it's a step in the actual medical world, I'm almost positive if I tried right now (if I were a graduate student) I could get a residency.

My point was that only 7.5% weren't matched this year - initially. Next year will be less, probably, as the retail and hospital jobs will probably be really occupied. Yeah, all 2000 were probably filled...out of how many applied, we said more than 2000? So I guess it is saturated now. Hm, I was wrong. Well, I guess I'll have to shift my views to PGY-2, which no one wants to do yet but will probably be the standard.
 
pfaction said:
Class of 2017 or class of 2016, it's going to be a rocky, rocky jobs market for them. Is it even worth recommending people to go to pharmacy school anymore? There is literally 2000+ graduates per year nation wide and not enough spots to fill as it is now, imagine a few years from now.
Click to expand...

I willa dmit that I am pretty gloom and doom about the job market situation, and I don't see it getting better anytime soon. Things are going to be tough for quite a while and we are probably going to be getting paid less, or have stagnant wage growth which is negative to inflattion.

That said...I LOVE my job. It has its ups and downs and parts I hate but there is almost nothing else I would rather do. I think it is important that prospective pharmacists understand the reality of the job market they will be facing, and if they just want to do pharmacy because it is a guaranteed 100k job they probably should think about something else. However, if they think they would actually like what is we do on a daily basis then yes, I would still encourage people to go into the field...and avoid aquiring debt to do so if at all possible.
 
Good thing i am class of 2015.....phewww i dodged a bullet there :laugh:
 
pfaction said:
I already stated I underrated the numbers because I wasn't sure EXACTLY how much but I figured 2000 was respectable enough not to laugh at; a # we can all say is the minimum. I have the grades, I have the motivation, but I have no desire or real love for the profession. I love clinical pharmacy because it's a step in the actual medical world, I'm almost positive if I tried right now (if I were a graduate student) I could get a residency.

My point was that only 7.5% weren't matched this year - initially. Next year will be less, probably, as the retail and hospital jobs will probably be really occupied. Yeah, all 2000 were probably filled...out of how many applied, we said more than 2000? So I guess it is saturated now. Hm, I was wrong. Well, I guess I'll have to shift my views to PGY-2, which no one wants to do yet but will probably be the standard.
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Except we can't all have specialist jobs...standardizing pgy2 wouldn't make any sense seeing as a majority of positions are general staffing
 
Do pre-pharm students even research about the pharmacy job market before deciding to apply? There is a pharmacy club at my school and all of them think the job market for pharmacists is actually good.
 
Judgment Dragon said:
Do pre-pharm students even research about the pharmacy job market before deciding to apply? There is a pharmacy club at my school and all of them think the job market for pharmacists is actually good.
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It's relative.

I wish people would educate themselves more concerning the job market, but compared to many fields pharmacy is still doing quite well.
 
owlegrad said:
It's relative.

I wish people would educate themselves more concerning the job market, but compared to many fields pharmacy is still doing quite well.
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I also wish people would say what area they're talking about when they say "there are no jobs out there" or "there's nothing around here."

Saying that there are no jobs in the country is just not true.
 
I do see a lot of job openings in the Pittsburgh area, but nothing that you would really want to live on. I live in Fayette county though, so I'm in the heart of welfare country right here lol. It's hard to blame some of them though; I would sign up for welfare before I'd work for <$10/hr.

In my area, if you don't posses a degree you work at one of the following: Construction (Scaffolding, welding, etc.), Mylan, Consol, US Steel, Coal Mines, or you are grunt for the Marcellus shale gas companies.

With my degree (Bio/Chem) I could not find jobs anywhere. The only two places I heard back from were Mylan (they are desperate for chemists) and US Steel. Everything else, including many of the jobs at those two companies, had way too many requirements for a new graduate to ever have a chance.

The majority of the people I graduated with from undergrad are still unemployed or working retail/restaurant positions. I don't think Pharmacists will have a problem getting jobs though. They will probably have to apply to jobs a wait to get a position like every other career in the country has to, but nothing as drastic as people seem to think. I hope the paranoia on this forum spreads like wildfire though :laugh:. The more people we make believe this field is doomed the easier we will have it :meanie:.
 
beastykato said:
I do see a lot of job openings in the Pittsburgh area, but nothing that you would really want to live on. I live in Fayette county though, so I'm in the heart of welfare country right here lol. It's hard to blame some of them though; I would sign up for welfare before I'd work for <$10/hr.

In my area, if you don't posses a degree you work at one of the following: Construction (Scaffolding, welding, etc.), Mylan, Consol, US Steel, Coal Mines, or you are grunt for the Marcellus shale gas companies.

With my degree (Bio/Chem) I could not find jobs anywhere. The only two places I heard back from were Mylan (they are desperate for chemists) and US Steel. Everything else, including many of the jobs at those two companies, had way too many requirements for a new graduate to ever have a chance.

The majority of the people I graduated with from undergrad are still unemployed or working retail/restaurant positions. I don't think Pharmacists will have a problem getting jobs though. They will probably have to apply to jobs a wait to get a position like every other career in the country has to, but nothing as drastic as people seem to think. I hope the paranoia on this forum spreads like wildfire though :laugh:. The more people we make believe this field is doomed the easier we will have it :meanie:.
Click to expand...

law school forums are filled with such talk. it doesn't stop people from signing up. and that job market really IS destroyed.
 
owlegrad said:
That's three schools total?
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But if you read the article, it also notes that law school applications are down 11% from last year and that LSATs taken are also down. Here's a second article (also WSJ):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704396504576204692878631986.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The article pointed out that the lower-tier schools were the first to feel a lack of qualified applicants, which would be expected in a situation like this. I find it really coincidental (and rather surprising) that two of those schools also have PharmD programs (I assume Touro Law is associated with the same Touro of pharmacy fame).
 
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pfaction said:
Class of 2017 or class of 2016, it's going to be a rocky, rocky jobs market for them. Is it even worth recommending people to go to pharmacy school anymore? There is literally 2000+ graduates per year nation wide and not enough spots to fill as it is now, imagine a few years from now.
Click to expand...


Its called job! Every field has some sort of competition and honestly up until this point...pharmacy didnt! Business majors, Engineers, Architects, etc....all deal with the same thing.

Jobs are out there and will always be out there! You just gotta find them and be competitive.

Pharmacist role will be expanding as well. You can do some many things with a PharmD now-a-days.

And honestly, you ppl need to do your research. Alot of you are talking about the saturated markets of the East and West Coast but their is still a shortage of pharmacists in the mid-West as well as Alaska. To say there are NO JOBS out there is plain ignorant if you ask me. Pharmacy is now becoming more like a regular field where you gotta put in the effort to secure a job. However, compared to almost all other careers......Pharmacy job market is still very promising.
 
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Match Results states 2000+ positions. I did not see the number of applicants. Did anyone see that somewhere. Thanks.
 
Can't forget about Alaaaaaaska ... and your million dollar sign-on bonus.

Don't y'all get a bit tired of the same old discussion? 😕
 
Zoupa said:
law school forums are filled with such talk. it doesn't stop people from signing up. and that job market really IS destroyed.
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ya but there is A BIG DIFFERENCE between LAW and PHARMACY.


you can never be the "BEST PHARMACIST" it does not matter. you will always be just a number in some company's business that can be replaced by someone younger eventually. that is a fact.

oh you make calls to insurance better than others? you count faster? you verify orders better? you put a smiley face on your vanco bag?

fact is pharmacy does not allow people to become the very best and be compensated for being the best. LAW DOES. you can be a great attorney and you get more clients because of that. your results speak for themselves.

that is the big diff in law vs pharm.

in pharm you can be mediocre and get the same pay as the guy killing himself.
 
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PharmaTope said:
ya but there is A BIG DIFFERENCE between LAW and PHARMACY.


you can never be the "BEST PHARMACIST" it does not matter. you will always be just a number in some company's business that can be replaced by someone younger eventually. that is a fact.
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You could just be a number, but being replaced by someone younger? Only if you don't do your job very well.

If you're a good pharmacist, it will be hard to replace you. If you have done a lot for the company, they see your skills and abilities, and you can't get that from replacing with a new pharmacist.

PharmaTope said:
oh you make calls to insurance better than others? you count faster? you verify orders better? you put a smiley face on your vanco bag?
Click to expand...

After enough experience and learning from the mistakes of others, you can be more alert than someone who has just started a pharmacist job.

PharmaTope said:
fact is pharmacy does not allow people to become the very best and be compensated for being the best. LAW DOES. you can be a great attorney and you get more clients because of that. your results speak for themselves.
Click to expand...

You can get a lot of customers if you're friendly and they see you as a good pharmacist.

Especially at independents, if you treat customers well, they keep coming back. Sometimes they bring their friends, which means more customers and more prescriptions for your business.

PharmaTope said:
in pharm you can be mediocre and get the same pay as the guy killing himself.
Click to expand...

I don't see what you're trying to say here.
 
PharmaTope said:
ya but there is A BIG DIFFERENCE between LAW and PHARMACY.


you can never be the "BEST PHARMACIST" it does not matter. you will always be just a number in some company's business that can be replaced by someone younger eventually. that is a fact.

oh you make calls to insurance better than others? you count faster? you verify orders better? you put a smiley face on your vanco bag?

fact is pharmacy does not allow people to become the very best and be compensated for being the best. LAW DOES. you can be a great attorney and you get more clients because of that. your results speak for themselves.

that is the big diff in law vs pharm.

in pharm you can be mediocre and get the same pay as the guy killing himself.
Click to expand...

You're funny.
 
PharmaTope said:
ya but there is A BIG DIFFERENCE between LAW and PHARMACY.


you can never be the "BEST PHARMACIST" it does not matter. you will always be just a number in some company's business that can be replaced by someone younger eventually. that is a fact.

oh you make calls to insurance better than others? you count faster? you verify orders better? you put a smiley face on your vanco bag?

fact is pharmacy does not allow people to become the very best and be compensated for being the best. LAW DOES. you can be a great attorney and you get more clients because of that. your results speak for themselves.

that is the big diff in law vs pharm.

in pharm you can be mediocre and get the same pay as the guy killing himself.
Click to expand...

I agree with everything you just said. Pharmacists are basically expendable. In law your value changes as you gain experience and seniority, so you can't be replaced by a fresh grad. However, that's besides my point. My point is that people will sign up and pay ridiculous tuition for programs despite having terrible job prospects.
 
Zoupa said:
I agree with everything you just said. Pharmacists are basically expendable. In law your value changes as you gain experience and seniority, so you can't be replaced by a fresh grad. However, that's besides my point. My point is that people will sign up and pay ridiculous tuition for programs despite having terrible job prospects.
Click to expand...

typical retail/hospital staff mentality

man you all need to get schooled on management/non-traditional jobs with pharmacy
 
confettiflyer said:
typical retail/hospital staff mentality
man you all need to get schooled on management/non-traditional jobs with pharmacy
Click to expand...

I get what you are saying, but honestly the statement you are referring to does not even apply to retail/hospital. Experience counts, period. In every field/position. Anyone who thinks they can be replaced by someone with no experience either has too low an opinion of themselves or are in desperate need of being replaced. I don't think many people actually think that experience means so little.
 
confettiflyer said:
typical retail/hospital staff mentality

man you all need to get schooled on management/non-traditional jobs with pharmacy
Click to expand...

Well lets be reasonable... 99% of jobs are staff positions in retail or hospital. I'm just saying that, relatively speaking, there is a much (much much much) greater difference between senior and junior lawyers than senior and junior pharmacists. There's a reason why pay in pharmacy is fairly stagnant throughout one's career.
 
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