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Well, there could be any number of factors at work here. Maybe your geographic area simply does not have enough demand. Maybe you need to really look in the private sector. Maybe you need to develop a specialty. Maybe you need to invest in a good interview suit. If you are banging your head against the wall, all I'm saying is that it's probably a good idea to re-evaluate your strategy and try something new.
I would have to agree with this...especially based on the tone of this posters 1000's of posts against science degrees...I don't think it's the industry that is the issue.
I would have to agree with this...especially based on the tone of this posters 1000's of posts against science degrees...I don't think it's the industry that is the issue.
I guess the other 80% of chemistry grads without good employment also need to reevaluate their strategy. Only 38% have full time jobs and 1/2 of those are in academia which is well known to be dead end and low paying.
Yes well 19% flat out employment puts chemistry right at the bottom of the pack with useless BA subjects.
Since I am a biochemist with both a heavy biology and chemistry background I can say that biology is in worse shape than chemistry. In fact many of the few biology jobs there are actually like chemistry majors because they have better math and equipment skills.
As for starting at the bottom, how about not starting beneath the bottom. These temp jobs are not going to lead to anything better. My colleagues with the BS/MS drift from temp job to temp job having long unemployment spells and never having benefits. Companies treat their blue collar workers at the bottling plant or their forklift drivers better than they treat their science staff. My colleagues with the PhD ended up in the same boat only drifting from post-doc to post-doc also with no benefits or career advancement.
Don't come here spouting BS that companies want more science grads to work their way through the ranks. What companies want are suckers to spend 6 years in school to be disposable lab serfs working for no benefits, no career advancement, and wages fit for a HS dropout. The only people I know who would recommend pursuing a chemistry or biology degree and career are either quite ignorant or incredibly amoral.
When it became apparent that graduate education in the sciences essentially meant that one would become the equivalent of a lab monkey for over a decade, I decided to become a physics teacher. I told my students be careful of the universities that they went to and if they decided that STEM was for them, to look more into engineering rather than pure science, though both would be affected by immigration policies and a terrible economy.
Long story short I had several of my students recently contact me to help find any kind of work in order to try paying off their loans. All these kids were very good students, a few of them went to excellent schools, and they can't find anything that pays a living wage. They're asking if they should go into grad school, more for the loans they could get and a possible small stipend. What do I say, nothing else is available, these kids have to do something, I suppose. But there are few if any good options left and these are STEM students for god's sake.
I guess the other 80% of chemistry grads without good employment also need to reevaluate their strategy. Only 38% have full time jobs and 1/2 of those are in academia which is well known to be dead end and low paying.
Well I suppose you can see it that way if you want to pick and choose what you want to believe off that chart but the fact of the matter is, MOST people with a chemistry degree are either working by choice or FURTHERING their education with only 15% being unemployed and 3% of those not even looking, so really a 12% unemployment rate which pretty much matches the national average for unemployment. What you fail to realize is that companies want Chemists with masters degrees and you probably should have researched that before hand. Also, if you look at the average salary at the bottom, it certainly is no where near the $15/hour you claim is the case--it is more than double that figure which is about $75,000/year STARTING according to your chart. With 10-20 years experience you can expect to see that move into the $150,000 range with a BS only.
As for academia--dead end and low paying??? Average salary for a chemistry prof around here is in the $150,000 range, that is a very comfortable salary pretty much anywhere in the US.
Well I suppose you can see it that way if you want to pick and choose what you want to believe off that chart but the fact of the matter is, MOST people with a chemistry degree are either working by choice or FURTHERING their education with only 15% being unemployed and 3% of those not even looking, so really a 12% unemployment rate which pretty much matches the national average for unemployment. What you fail to realize is that companies want Chemists with masters degrees and you probably should have researched that before hand. Also, if you look at the average salary at the bottom, it certainly is no where near the $15/hour you claim is the case--it is more than double that figure which is about $75,000/year STARTING according to your chart. With 10-20 years experience you can expect to see that move into the $150,000 range with a BS only.
As for academia--dead end and low paying??? Average salary for a chemistry prof around here is in the $150,000 range, that is a very comfortable salary pretty much anywhere in the US.
15 and 19% unemployment is nothing to brag about. That is double the national average of 8.5% and the data in the chart makes it clear that those numbers are artificially low as only chemists languishing on unemployment and not working crap jobs or pursuing a career change (further studies) are declared unemployed.
I would argue the majority of those not looking are discouraged workers (gave up) as well as those in "further studies"(leaving the field). The MS especially is typically a terminal degree and not needed as part of a PhD program.
How many BS's and MS's working in academia are tenured professors? None. The BS and MS level scientists in academia are technicians and those positions can pay as little as $10 an hour.
The majority of the PhD's in academia are post-docs and nontenured professors earning from $35k to $60k at most for a nontenured professor.
Finally if companies want chemists with Master's degrees why is unemployment a full 4 points higher for MS level chemists?
BTW where do you get $75k starting salary. The median salary of "Chemists" with an MS and all levels of experience even 20 years is $49.3k not very impressive.
Last edited by MSchemist80; 01-23-2012 at 10:00 AM..
15 and 19% unemployment is nothing to brag about. That is double the national average of 8.5% and the data in the chart makes it clear that those numbers are artificially low as only chemists languishing on unemployment and not working crap jobs or pursuing a career change (further studies) are declared unemployed.
I would argue the majority of those not looking are discouraged workers (gave up) as well as those in "further studies"(leaving the field). The MS especially is typically a terminal degree and not needed as part of a PhD program.
How many BS's and MS's working in academia are tenured professors? None. The BS and MS level scientists in academia are technicians and those positions can pay as little as $10 an hour.
The majority of the PhD's in academia are post-docs and nontenured professors earning from $35k to $60k at most for a nontenured professor.
Finally if companies want chemists with Master's degrees why is unemployment a full 4 points higher for MS level chemists?
BTW where do you get $75k starting salary. The average salary of "Chemists" with an MS and all levels of experience even 20 years is $49.3k not very impressive.
Read your own chart---look at the numbers---do the math--$35/hour is the median pay a graduate with a BS in Chemistry is reporting as a starting salary according to the information on the chart YOU posted. Again, the unemployment rate is NOT 19%, that is how many are not employed--BIG difference since 4% of those people are not looking for a job. At the masters level the exact same percentage of people seeking employment, 15%, between chemists and chemical engineering. At the BS level, chemists have a HIGHER employment rate than chemical engineers if you read the chart correctly....
Read your own chart---look at the numbers---do the math--$35/hour is the median pay a graduate with a BS in Chemistry is reporting as a starting salary according to the information on the chart YOU posted. Again, the unemployment rate is NOT 19%, that is how many are not employed--BIG difference since 4% of those people are not looking for a job. At the masters level the exact same percentage of people seeking employment, 15%, between chemists and chemical engineering. At the BS level, chemists have a HIGHER employment rate than chemical engineers if you read the chart correctly....
These figures are for salary not hourly. The median salary (salary=pay per year) for a BS chemist any amount of experience is $35,000 per year
see the ($thousands) above the permanent full time
BTW the permanent full time indicates they only took the salaries of chemists with permanent full time jobs into the calculations.
Finally 19% is the unemployment rate. The number not employed is 100%-38%(FT employed)-11%(PT employed)=51%
Read your own chart---look at the numbers---do the math--$35/hour is the median pay a graduate with a BS in Chemistry is reporting as a starting salary according to the information on the chart YOU posted
$35 an hour for a Chemist? In your dreams. Most chemists won't see that even with 20 years of experience. Please Chemistry/Biology are worthless. Also the unemployment is atrocious. Everyone I worked with and graduated with went back to school within a few years to change careers completely or went to professional school. Otherwise they languished like I did in $15 an hour permatemp jobs. It was a joke. Employers have no respect for scientists. They just expect them to fall from trees pretrained and work for them without benefits for janitor wages for as long as they need them then toss them aside and scream to congress for more h1-b's whenever they can't find such a sucker.
Who in their right mind would spend 6 years taking amongst the most difficult courses at the university and spending long hours in the lab for worse pay and job prospects than the guy who just worked his way up to manager at Best Buy.
I am in year 3 of my PT-PhD and I am so glad I will never be a lab slave to an amoral American corp again.
I'd let my niece turn tricks on the corner before I let her destroy her life with a chemistry degree. I talked her out of biochem for an accounting degree and she has a decent job with benefits even though she works like a dog.
I think you have to take anecdotal evidence about chemistry careers with a grain of salt. I was at a wedding two weeks ago and I was placed at a table with four other chemists ranging from my age (early 30s) to retirement age. I am a tenure track professor two years away from tenure and I know for a fact my salary is 30K lower than anyone else at that table, and I am not exactly being paid slave wages.
I agree that chemistry jobs are not as easy to come by as they were when I graduated with a bachelors in 2001. Then, the top half of the class had their pick of grad schools and job offers. Now, it is really only the top quarter and in some regions 10%.
For chemists looking for work, remember that your chemistry degree is not what will get you a job. Your ideas will get you research jobs and your analytical thinking as well as communication and interpersonal skills will get you business jobs. I agree that contract lab tech jobs really suck, and are the sweatshops of R&D. Very little skill is required to run modern ICPs, GCs, HPLCs, etc. Much of the routine mol bio/biochem/microbio that was cutting edge 15 years ago, and companies would rather invest $10 in automation than $1 in personnel to run analyses. If you want to go the purely technical route, you had better be very very good. Like master craftsmen, the highly skilled lab tech is a thing of the past.
Most of my students go on to med/pharm/grad schools of some sort. Those that don't mostly get jobs related to chemistry, but they don't describe themselves as chemists. Off the top of my head, some of my students have gone on to work in flavor chemistry, pharma marketing, technical writing, patent law, metallurgy, medical research, secondary education, and one is opening her own restaurant. I guess you can interpret that many ways, but I see those jobs as being on the interface between science and society.
$35 an hour for a Chemist? In your dreams. Most chemists won't see that even with 20 years of experience. Please Chemistry/Biology are worthless. Also the unemployment is atrocious. Everyone I worked with and graduated with went back to school within a few years to change careers completely or went to professional school. Otherwise they languished like I did in $15 an hour permatemp jobs. It was a joke. Employers have no respect for scientists. They just expect them to fall from trees pretrained and work for them without benefits for janitor wages for as long as they need them then toss them aside and scream to congress for more h1-b's whenever they can't find such a sucker.
Who in their right mind would spend 6 years taking amongst the most difficult courses at the university and spending long hours in the lab for worse pay and job prospects than the guy who just worked his way up to manager at Best Buy.
I am in year 3 of my PT-PhD and I am so glad I will never be a lab slave to an amoral American corp again.
I'd let my niece turn tricks on the corner before I let her destroy her life with a chemistry degree. I talked her out of biochem for an accounting degree and she has a decent job with benefits even though she works like a dog.
Funny I received an Accounting BS back in 87, and at the time, eight major CPA firms were in existence. Now we have four and pretty soon, we'll probably be down to two. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy your niece is doing well in that field and not having to sell herself. But that field is a FAR cry from where it was over 20 years ago. The S&L fiasco took a lot of business away for CPA's, as did automation, where firms can now get nearly everything they need from pro's in India/Phillipines for a fraction of the money. All those paperless audits and such.
I went back to get my Physics degree and I couldn't believe just how horrifically the subject was taught. My initial school was a middling research university which was overrun with adjunct/assistant/associate profs who will probably not get tenured but are part of the money chase anyway. They were forced to spend most of their time chasing grants or administering whatever money they already had secured. Undergrad teaching was last of their priorities. I had one tenured idiot tell our class that if we understood 30-40% of the material, we were actually doing all right. They know their pedagogy is nothing more than poorly prepared lectures and inadequate student support so they resort to curving the hell outta the class so as to give the impression that people were learning.
That generally can't happen in Accounting, not with me and I'm sure, not with your niece. We were actually expected to go to work after our graduation and if the business department turned out people who knew nothing more than 50% of the material, and the department was happy with that, no one would have recruited that school. I can't speak for Bio/Chem, but if they're the same as Physics, then she did well to stay away...
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