Speaking of chemists,my son is (hopefully)graduating in 6 weeks as a pharmacist at JCU Townsville. He's applied for his first position at a chemist in Port Douglas,no answer yet,of course.
I know someone with a phd in chemistry. He also got an MBA and has some kinda management job that requires a little technical skill. He had the hardest time even finding his first job with just the phd.
In Aussie,a chemist(shop) is what you will call a drug store. You need to go to University(college) and get a degree in pharmacy to be allowed to dispense drugs,treatments,pills etc........ whereas in the 'states it appears all you need is a firearm of some sort......
I'll keep my fingers crossed for him Simon. Unfortunately unemployment/underemployment and abysmal wages are a real problem for new graduates. It's another symptom of the implosion of the pharmacy industry at all levels. The Uni's are run as businesses and are pumping out 1900+ graduates a year...........for only 5500 retail pharmacies and the hospitals. The saving grace for him may well be that he is in the country where it can be difficult to attract pharmacists and wages tend to be better than in the major cities. It's sad; but I actively discourage kids (including my own nephew) from pursuing pharmacy as the future looks very bleak. The President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia made this press release today: "Following another spate of very personal hate mail correspondence from pharmacists and students triggered by un-moderated and uninformed comments on pharmacy blogs, it is time people did their research before blaming the Guild for the environment faced by young graduates. Here are the facts: Significant university graduate unemployment the norm: The 2012 Graduate Survey came out last month and across all 2012 university graduates when you look at their employment position in May 2013 we see that only 76.1% are working full-time. Incredibly 8.6% are unemployed and 15.3% are working part-time, but would prefer fulltime work. The statistic of 98.1% of pharmacy interns being in full-time employment is misleading. I personally place 30 to 40 intern pharmacists each year with colleagues, as a favour to the worried student. I cant ask those favours for second year pharmacists. Universities are run as businesses. Senior university administrators do not care about the unique elements of pharmacy. Based on the 98.1% figure their view will be that pharmacy has more capacity and will pressure pharmacy schools to increase intake numbers in the unregulated university market. Indeed, pharmacy schools are a small fish in a big pond. The Boards March 2013 report stated there are 1905 provisional registrations. That means if pharmacy reaches the employment graduate average across universities some 163 graduates will not be able to get a job at all and 455 will be either unemployed or only working part time when their preference is full time work. Universities have no obligation to find jobs for graduates: Universities therefore do not feel it is their obligation to guarantee a job upon graduation. Skilled Occupation Lists largely irrelevant: The issue of pharmacy being on the Skilled Occupation List (SOL) has largely become irrelevant when compared to the Federal Government University policy of unregulated intake numbers. Government policy of 40% increase in university graduates: When Prime Minister Rudd first took office the Government removed restrictions on university places so that everyone who applied for universities would get in, with the aim of having 40% of Australians aged between 25 and 34 attaining a degree. The Coalitions policy is also to leave the numbers uncapped. Based on averages we can therefore expect an increase of at least 400 in the pharmacy intake numbers, from current numbers, by 2025................." Sorry to be the bearer of bad news; but I hope his remote location will work in his favour. If he was in the big smoke he would be fooked.
Yes it's a very different system over there. Their degree is longer; but they are generally pretty well paid. The US drug stores are pretty much our supermarkets with a dispensary tacked on out the back somewhere.
woolies are into optomery stores so adding a dispensary to their model would be easy. https://www.bigwvision.com.au/about-us
Luckily Josh is much more inclined to stay in the country(the fairly general consensus of school leavers up here,is to go to the'smoke')due to his mates',family and interest's. He would prefer to be in a hospital situation,though,he found,in his various placements,it a great deal more hand's on and interesting.
That's the big stick that gets waved; but my personal feeling is that it is unlikely. Purely because it is not in the Governments nor the publics (though they don't realise it) best interests. The Pharmaceutical Benifits Scheme (PBS) accounts for $9.2 billion in the annual Federal budget. The Coles/Woolworths duopoly already gets 40 cents in every dollar spent in a retail outlet in Australia. Think about that for a moment, 40% of ALL retail expenditure in Australia goes to just 2 companies, a market share that is not realised anywhere else in the world. The Government is unable to control them, witness the petrol discount vouchers which are a thinly veiled form of predatory pricing that has just about wiped out all independant petrol stations. In the longer term that will lead to higher prices for consumers. Witness the $2 milk wars that were funded by Coles/Woolworths screwing the poor farmer suppliers to the point of bankruptcy...........and so it goes on. What has the Government and it's toothless tiger the ACCC done about it ? Absolutely SFA, ZIP, NADA is the answer and, in the long run the lack of competition will mean higer prices for consumers. At the moment the Government lords it over 5500 pharmacies pretty much as it pleases. The last 5 year "agreement" between the pharmacy guild and the government resulted in the government clawing back $1 billion a year in savings on the PBS. Would coles/woolworths agree to cop that? Do you really think the Government will hand Coles/Woolworths a $9.2 Billion slab of the Federal budget in light of all of the above? In addition it would wipe out the pharmaceutical wholesalers and 5500 retail pharmacies spread far and wide over this vast country almost overnight. That would seriously hamper the publics access to medicines and a whole raft of low/no margin essential services currently provided to the public. For example, servicing nursing homes is a highly labour intensive and ultra, ultra low margin service. Coles/woolworths wouldn't touch it, so who is going to do it? Just one of many, many essential services that would vanish. So no I don't think it's on the cards, and not because it's got anything to do with what's best for pharmacists.
It's not as easy as you might think. It's written into the legislation that Supermarkets are not allowed to have a vested interest in a pharmacy. You can't even relocate a pharmacy owned by a pharmacist into a supermarket, or even move one next door and share an entry point. The only exception to pharmacist ownership is the so called "friendly societies" which were in existance before the legislation. These are corporate stores supposedly set up and run for the benefit of its public members. A bit of history. The first internet pharmacy was set up in the early days of the internet by an enterprising pharmacist and it boomed. He then bought a friendly society and transferred the internet business to it. He then sold the friendly society to Coles for something like $40 million. The Pharmacy Guild took Coles to court and after a lengthy and expensive battle the Pharmacy Guild won. Coles was forced to divest itself of the pharmacy business to registered pharmacists for quite a bit less than they paid for it. So not as easy as you might imagine.
I would very strongly advise him to go with the hospital system if he can find a placement. If he enters the retail system he will likely end up as cannon fodder in one of the discount operations for $23 an hour. Sadly there would be little hope of career advancement or eventual ownership of his own store.
I don't know if this is part of it but while shopping at Coles, I've noticed that the Coles brand on the shelf has a longer expiry date on the day then farmers milk. Certainly did make me wonder if they "hold" onto the farmers milk in storage until it has just a few days left and put the Coles milk straight onto the shelf with a week left. I know someone who's family owned three fruit and veg. They have been highly successful for around thirty years. Even recently everyone assumed they were doing well. They had to shut down two of their shops, one in the same shopping centre as Coles and one in the same shopping centre as Woollies. They just couldn't beat the big two who were undercutting them with cheap fruit and veg. Just as well they've saved/invested well for thirty years. Then there are liquor shops etc etc. ACCC just don't appear to be well equipped to tackle the new forms of predatory behaviour we see today, but they'll need to do something, because even the suppliers are struggling, not just the competitors. Unfortunately the average consumer is not aware of the issues and the implications, so someone needs to step in....
360C you are spot on re university places and the retail situation. Unfortunately both of these outcomes are driven by the confusion between what's a business and what's a public service. Obviously retail is a business but the free market rules at present. Do we even have anti -monopoly rules in Australia?
We have the ACCC which is a toothless tiger, seemingly incapable of doing anything beyond a press release. In the USA they have real anti monopoly laws.
Thanks for that insight - I was not aware of the legislation. It is good news that there is some form of protection between the two. In Woolies case would their Big W operations be classed as Supermarkets for legislative purposes?
That's absolutely disgusting Scott! Worse still, not at all surprising. They seem hellbent on destroying specialists.
Why thank you Simon. I have been doing a little skiing lately after an extensive rambling and cycling sabbatical of six months duration. It's nice to be back on track !
