Pharmacy is a relatively secure position with many available jobs.
Lots of companies need to cut costs right now, not just pharmacy. Look at hospitals. Are hospitals suddenly going to cut their doctors and nurses just because they need to make budget cuts? I would imagine unnecessary cuts will be made first. Professions like PTs, OTs, and NPs and PAs will begin to feel some pressure. Professions like optometry and chiropractic have already felt the tremendous pains of an over-saturated market in a down-economy.
Companies like Walgreens will stop expanding so rapidly, but there is still a need for drugs. There are other ways to cut expenses than cutting labor. They may cut hours of pharmacists, and cut benefits, and freeze bonuses and salary hikes, but there is still going to be a need for pharmacists. Healthcare is always high in demand during recession.
Some of us won't be able to find our desired job in big cities, but there will still be jobs in small rural communities. Walmart is still begging for staff in many of their rural stores right now.
Also, if there is a glut of pharamacist positions and an ecoomic recession, many of the newly established pharmacy schools will feel tremendous pressure themselves. I would foresee many of the newer schools not being able to survive a hard recession or depression. The more established pharmacy programs in major university settings have far more endowment, state money, alumni donors, ect. For the private schools to survive, they will have to jack their tuition to ridiculous prices that only suckers will want to pay. I am still amazed that so many people desire to go to schools with annual tuition exceeding $50,000. I was lucky enough to get into a state school-- so I count my blessings.
In a worst case scenario, government loan backed money will be much harder to come by-- and the government could be much more selective with the schools it gives its federal dollars. Market pressure will weed out the weak links in both the market and the educational system.
We are the lucky ones. What other degree has much of a bright future right now? Healthcare is one of the last bastion's of the job sector right now. What college majors are any good anymore? Engineering, chemistry, biology? Even most graduate degrees are not that safe unless you are the cream of the crop. MDs feel tremendous pressure to get a decent job in their specialty field and pay their loans off.
At least we can say that we will all get a job right now in pharmacy. Pharmacy is also rapidly trying to expand its scope of practice so that it can take more of a community role.
The seniors, the aging population, the 50% of us with chronic disease aren't going away anytime soon. Our population is not shrinking. Pharmacists will always be needed. There will be growing pains, there will be greedy schools trying to make a buck, and there will may even be some paycuts-- but our opportunities are still brighter than just about any other field right now.
I can't think of too many other opportunities for myself at the moment. Law is no longer a great degree and a good number of graduates get stuck working as paralegals for a while. Starting a business is very risky and takes captial. Management jobs are getting cut left and right, so the propositions for an MBA without a great deal of business experience are not great. Engineer salaries are peanuts, and not facing a great future due to cheap foreign labor. Nurses have an average career of 7 years, and face a tremoundous amount of burnout for the difficult job they do. MDs face ever-diminishing salaries, ridiculous admission standards, awe-inspiring workweeks, and a possible hazy outlook with the possiblity of a more socialized national healthcare system-- some of the specialities still look great but how fierce is the competition to get those residencies and jobs? PTs have a ever-escalading amount of school required for their programs for an ever-diminishing amount of financial return-- insurance companies are very finicky paying for manual medicine these days.
I think pharmacy is still a great career choice. There is risk involved, but far less with many of the other degree options right now. We will probably have to work much harder in the recession years, but at least we will most likely have work. That is more than many of us can say.
