Pharmacists flooding the job market

[tweaker]

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since the interest in Pharmacology seems to be at its peak now, with Pharmacist schools becoming more and more competitive, its only inevitable that we experience some sort of saturation in the market. With more Pharmacists graduation than positions opening, sooner or later the Pharmacy and biotech field will end up like the IT field several years ago. One of the reasons I am getting out of IT now is because the pay isn't that great and there are very few opportunities. My only regret is wasting so many years on getting IT education and experience when I could have been spending it on Pharmacy, which seems to be going the same route as IT did.
Is anyone else worried that once they graduate, the job market will already be saturated?

 

[rxforlife2004]

since the interest in Pharmacology seems to be at its peak now, with Pharmacist schools becoming more and more competitive, its only inevitable that we experience some sort of saturation in the market. With more Pharmacists graduation than positions opening, sooner or later the Pharmacy and biotech field will end up like the IT field several years ago. One of the reasons I am getting out of IT now is because the pay isn't that great and there are very few opportunities. My only regret is wasting so many years on getting IT education and experience when I could have been spending it on Pharmacy, which seems to be going the same route as IT did.
Is anyone else worried that once they graduate, the job market will already be saturated?

...then why are you here???

 

[bananaface]

It is a legitimate question.

In Seattle proper, most sites are saturated with pharmacists. Some chains (not all) in this area stopped adding pharmacies after 9/11 and are not expanding again until they are sure the economy is back on track. It's just a small stall, though. And there are still jobs in outlying areas where you can get a hiring bonus. WAGs is taking advantage of the situation and sticking new stores all over the place.

With the aging of the baby boomers, I can see a continuing growth in pharmacy as they age. With people living longer, those of us entering the market now will probably always be employed as a consequence of the boom. Those who graduate 20 years down the road may be totally screwed by a population deflation near the end of their careers. With changes happening in pharmacy, diversification of roles could compensate for the eventual population decrease. But, a decrease in pharmacy utilization is pretty far down the road.

 

[spacecowgirl]

It is completely the opposite here. I work for a chain that keeps on building even though it can't fully staff the stores it already has. In my district, which isn't that large, I would say at least once a week at least one store has to close for part of or a whole day because there is no pharmacist to staff it.

I'm not sweating anything.

 

[dgroulx]

Every day at Eckerd, a fax comes in showing overtime opportunites for the district. There are 3-4 stores listed for each day. Eckerd has to close the pharmacy department when pharmacists from another store don't cover on their day off. For busy stores, they have used agency pharmacists so they don't have to close on that day. This is just one pharmacy chain. I'm sure the problem exists with other chains as well. The current number of graduates can't keep pace with pharmacy growth. Lots of graduates choose to work only part time, too.

Not all students that graduate choose to work for a retail chain, either. I love it and it's what I want to do. I know that I will have a job when I graduate.

 

[GravyRPH]

The agint population is going to keep prescription volume high and growing for many years to come. At some point the shortage will cease to exist. There are too many people that want to be pharmacist's for it to last forever (plus technology and a lot of other factors). But, I don't expect that to happen for awhile. I suppose I should be hopping from chain to chain so I can get all those bonuses' and free bmw's while I can.

 

[rxforlife2004]

... I suppose I should be hopping from chain to chain so I can get all those bonuses' and free bmw's while I can.

dang! You sure know how to take advantage on things...

 

[Smilescali]

Does anyone know the attrition rate of Pharmacists?

 

[sargepharm]

I also have a degree in IT and have been unable to find a job over the past year and a half. I think the main difference between the shortage in pharmacy as compared to IT is that the shortage in IT came as a result of the Stock market bubble that occured in the late 90's. This resulted in a huge number of start up firms in IT without a proper business model. When the bubble burst huge numbers of IT firms went out of business thus flooding the IT job market. Couple that with a large number of firms intensifying their offshoring activities and one can see how demand for IT workers drastically dropped. The pharmacy field is different in that the huge demand is not caused by the stock market but rather by the changing demographics of this country. Also, there is only a limited number of pharmacy colleges in the country and adding colleges is not an easy proposition because of the limited number of pharmacy professors.

 

[bananaface]

Here is an interesting article on the pharmacist shortage. The font is teeny, though.

 

[GravyRPH]

Support for increasing the supply of pharmacists must include steps to increase applications to pharmacy schools that have been falling since 1997.

What the? That can't be right...?

 

[LVPharm]

What the? That can't be right...?

It isn't. This is from that article I posted a few weeks back:

"....very, very hypercompetitive application pool right now. We're hearing about pharmacy schools having upwards of 10 applicants for every seat. That's a complete turnaround in just two or three years." - Lucinda Maine, Executive VP, AACP

A few years ago, there was a push to recruit potential pharmacy students. Even Rite Aid used to (perhaps still do) have a little advert at the bottom of their bags asking people to consider a career in pharmacy, and to contact AACP for more info. There's no need for that now. 😉

 

[LVPharm]

Now this worries me!

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jun-22-Tue-2004/news/24153410.html

Even with a growing population in Clark County (the fastest in the nation), the entire state of Nevada cannot accomodate 3(!) pharmacy schools!

 

[deerhunter5]

i don't really think pharmacy will suffer the same fate as IT because the clientel is comprised mostly of an elderly population that will only increase with time. i assume this increase would be met by an increase/need in pharmacists. IT and pharmacy are two different fields whose revenues are dependent on two totally different factors. with this in mind, IMO, we are fine. as long as our folks are living to the ripe age of 70 or 80, i wouldn't be too concerned about my profession unless those robots in I, Robot took over.

 

[Rfour]

What area do you work in spacecowgirl - central CA perhaps???

 

[laura_mideon]

I have faith in this field!!! 😀

 

[loo]

Maybe out West there is some saturation, but there is still a shortage in the Southeast and Northeast! I'm doing overtime I would prefer not to do because there are not enough bodies!! Maybe new grads are holding out for more bucks? Hmmm.

 

[spacecowgirl]

What area do you work in spacecowgirl - central CA perhaps???

Nope, South Carolina. Although when I worked in Minnesota (until 2001) there was the same problem there.


go Cocks!

 

[Tuck]

I would doubt that saturation of the market will occur in the next couple of years. Although increases in technology will help to combat some processing time, the number of RXs is expected to increase dramatically with the aging population. Couple that with the fact that there are still a limited number of accredited pharmacy schools and the pharmacis output will not be able to keep up with demand. That being said, my forcast is that by 2014-2020 we will have made up for the shortages that currently exist. Of course that is my own theory and although I have some numbers to back this up things are changing so rapidly both with technology and legislation that it may well throw a monkey wrench into that estimate.

 

[dzlist]

i heard that CVS is closing about 200 stores in michigan. i hope there is something for me to do after i graduate, or i will head back to school and take Reg Science or Affairs.
I talked to an independent pharmacist who is doing transplant med, his store has about 800-1000 Rx daily. so i guess, more people will specialize just like medical doctors have done...there will be jobs as long as we keep us in the circle, and make our profession noticeable in the healthcare field.