Survey: Pharmacy pay rates rising, but gains slow in some areas
NEW YORK —The ongoing and seemingly intractable squeeze in available pharmacy staff continues to put pharmacists at a premium in the labor market, driving up pay for pharmacy professionals, according to the 2007 Pharmacy Compensation Survey from Mercer. However, pharmacy pay levels rose at a slower pace last year for some professionals, the consulting and research firm found.
In 2007, the national average pay for a retail staff pharmacist rose 4.3 percent to $102,800, including base salary and annual bonus, Mercer reported. However, that marks a slight levelling off from the rise in 2006, when average pay increased 5.3 percent.
“The positions of pharmacy team manager and pharmacy technician are also experiencing pay rising at a slower rate,” the firm added.
Median pay hikes are accelerating, however, for some pharmacy management and clinical staff. Regional pharmacy operations managers earned median total cash compensation of $130,400 last year, according to Mercer, compared with $122,100 in 2006. That amounted to an increase of 6.8 percent, more than twice the pay increase of 3.1 percent in 2005.
“Similarly, clinical pharmacists saw pay raises increase from 3.9 percent in 2006 to 6.3 percent in 2007,” the report noted.
“The shortage of talent, growing number of prescriptions to fill due to an aging population and complications resulting from Medicare Part D have increased the demand for pharmacists, in general,” said Eric Michael, principal with Mercer’s managed pharmacy benefit business. “In an effort to attract and retain good pharmacists, and remain competitive, pharmacy operators are continuing to raise salaries.”
Behind the steady rise in pay is an inescapable fact for pharmacy chains: the workload—and with it the need for staff pharmacists—is rising faster than the available talent pool coming out of the nation’s 80-plus pharmacy schools. “Between 2004 and 2010 the supply of all community pharmacists is expected to increase only 7.8 percent, versus an estimated 27 percent increase in the number of prescriptions dispensed…from 3.27 billion in 2003 to more than 4.1 billion in 2010,” noted the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.
In 2004, NACDS reported, the nation’s chain and independent pharmacies employed 136,773 full- and part-time community pharmacists, with chains accounting for about 116,000 of that total. By 2010, that total will only rise to 147,378 practitioners, according to the NACDS projections.
That steady increase in demand has put newly minted pharmacy school graduates in the driver’s seat. What’s more, Mercer’s Michael noted, “Pharmacists today have many choices regarding where to work and the type of work they want to do. Not only have the number of outlets offering pharmacies increased, pharmacists have opportunities in wholesale businesses and with the government that may offer better hours and less or no prescriptions to fill.”
Despite the general uptick in pay, Mercer’s semi-annual survey found significant differences in pay from one region to another. Average pay for retail staff pharmacists was highest in such markets as San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., where the median total cash compensation was $112,700 to $112,800, Mercer found. In Omaha, Neb., on the other hand, total pay averaged $91,500, and in Little Rock, Ark., pay scales averaged $82,100.