Need for Rx'ers lags behind other health professionals

Drug Store News, March 5, 1990

Need for Rx'ers lags behind other health professionals

WASHINGTON - Despite the growing pharmaceutical needs of a larger and older population, "the demand for pharmacists during the 1990s is expected to increase considerably slower than for other health professions," according to a federal forecast.

The total number of U.S. pharmacists reached 151,000 in 1986 and is expected to rise by an additional 36,000 by the year 2000, according to Labor Department figures. But that 24-percent increase means the demand for pharmacists will grow only about as much as the rise in the total U.S. workforce by the turn of the century.

In contrast, the demand for physicians will climb by 38 percent, the need for veterinarians will jump 46 percent, and jobs for registered nurses will increase by 44 percent.

Other health professions will show similar or even greater gains. The demand for optometrists will rise 49 percent, dentists 30 percent, podiatrists 77 percent, dieticians and nutritionists 34 percent, occupational therapists 32 percent, physical therapists 87 percent and physician's assistants 57 percent.

Significantly, professions outside of the health care arena will also show measurably stronger growth than pharmacy.

The demand for lawyers, for example, will climb 36 percent (from 527,000 to 718,000) by 2000, jobs for economists will rise 34 percent, and the need for psychologists, home service workers and social workers will increase by at least one-third.

Employment forecasters at the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggested that despite the lacklustre predictions for growth in demand for pharmacists, pharmacy school graduates will continue to have their pick of jobs in the 1990s.

Thanks in part to "scientific advances that will bring more drugs on to the market" during the next decade, BLS said that "excellent job prospects are anticipated in both community and clinical settings, if current trends persist."

Indeed, federal employment forecasters maintained, "demand [for pharmacists] is likely to outstrip supply in some places."