Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
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.
Just curious... Would you consider a Chem or Bio BS useful if the recipient wanted to use it to get into pharma sales? I know quite a few successful pharma sales reps with these degrees (including 2 of my siblings who are each making 6 figures in their 20's/30's). Their science degrees got them in the door, along with their excellent people skills. I don't believe they wanted to use their degrees to work in a lab environment.
No doubt about it, construction and anything that feeds off it, including architecture, is pretty dead these years. I talked with an architect recently who retired in 2009. That was an excellent year to leave Architecture. Far behind. Supposedly it will come back to life in a few years.
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.
I don't know if you're happy with your employment now, but have you tried searching for work with government agencies? San Antonio has a municipally-owned water system and is always looking for science majors.
I don't know if you're happy with your employment now, but have you tried searching for work with government agencies? San Antonio has a municipally-owned water system and is always looking for science majors.
State and local govts aren't in much condition to be hiring and their pay isn't great either. I have however focused on federal jobs and have over 230 applications for federal jobs out there. Unfortunately everyone with a science degree wants to work for the fed (with the way the private sector treats scientists who would want to work for them?) I've had positions that reported they had over 1000 applicants.
State and local govts aren't in much condition to be hiring and their pay isn't great either. I have however focused on federal jobs and have over 230 applications for federal jobs out there. Unfortunately everyone with a science degree wants to work for the fed (with the way the private sector treats scientists who would want to work for them?) I've had positions that reported they had over 1000 applicants.
Like I have said before, your experience is not the norm, at least around here. Chemists are in high demand at many companies around here and they make a heck of a lot more than $15/hour....
Like I have said before, your experience is not the norm, at least around here. Chemists are in high demand at many companies around here and they make a heck of a lot more than $15/hour....
Unless you are in China or India I can't see that.
The only chemists I've ever seen in high demand have 10 years of ridiculously specific experience like latex materials development or paint formulations because those are the only jobs that companies can't get away with offering no benefits and $15 an hour and most chemists are gone from the field long before they have that much experience.
Just curious... Would you consider a Chem or Bio BS useful if the recipient wanted to use it to get into pharma sales? I know quite a few successful pharma sales reps with these degrees (including 2 of my siblings who are each making 6 figures in their 20's/30's). Their science degrees got them in the door, along with their excellent people skills. I don't believe they wanted to use their degrees to work in a lab environment.
Yes sales jobs are great if you have an aptitude for it, though pharma has been cutting back on sales same as everything (except executive bonuses of course) since they allowed their blockbusters' patents to expire without adequate R&D on new drugs to replace them. As a result, pharma has been the number one industry for layoffs for the past several years and will likely be so in the foreseeable future since even if they started immediately it takes 10 years to bring new drugs to market. So I wouldn't depend on anything pharma for a career.
Otherwise I can say the only satisfaction I ever got from my science degrees was tossing it into the barbecue in the back yard and watching it burn.
And I think they're light at the 13.9% unemployment rate.
General architectural CAD operators are taking a hard hit too. Six years ago I would go into an architectural firm made up of one or two architects where they would have between two and six CAD operators doing the actual drawings. Most CAD operators earned between $13 and $18 but I am sure some made more outside my red flyover state. Today most CAD operators are gone the architects are doing the drawings because it is better to earn $15/hr than nothing.
Yeah. If you talk about a business that's getting rocked at the moment, architecture is it. Add chemistry and biology to the mix and that pretty much puts paid to the notion that demanding, technical majors automatically confer employment and financial reward. What's more, given the incredible oversupply in the market at the moment, I can't imagine residential architecture coming back with any degree of strength for years. Commercial (With the exception of retail, which was overbuilt to accommodate the Baby Boomers) is a different story, chiefly because it didn't get overbuilt the way residential did.
As a note on the draughtsman thing. My father was an architect. I remember, in the early 80s, having a vehement argument on computers and how they would change his business. He simply refused to believe it, instead talking about how tissue overlays would never go away and how computers were a gimmick. About a year later, some young turk in his office bought a CAD/CAM system and started cranking out plans at a far faster rate. My father realized immediately that his way of doing things was going the way of the dinosaur and was probably too old to adapt.
State and local govts aren't in much condition to be hiring and their pay isn't great either. I have however focused on federal jobs and have over 230 applications for federal jobs out there. Unfortunately everyone with a science degree wants to work for the fed (with the way the private sector treats scientists who would want to work for them?) I've had positions that reported they had over 1000 applicants.
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.
State and local govts aren't in much condition to be hiring and their pay isn't great either. I have however focused on federal jobs and have over 230 applications for federal jobs out there. Unfortunately everyone with a science degree wants to work for the fed (with the way the private sector treats scientists who would want to work for them?) I've had positions that reported they had over 1000 applicants.
I guess it depends on where you live. A quarter of Texas' job growth is in the public sector with most of it being at the local level.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
