Here Pharmacy

What are the chances that the demand for pharmacists will dramatically decrease over the coming years?

I want to go into a field that can give me financial security throughout most of my life. Many people have been saying that the demand for pharmacists WILL decrease and noone knows what the future will bring, but I just wanted to know what might possibly happen.

Public Comments

1. I'm not sure why those people think it will decrease. Health care is the most secure industry right now, by far. As baby boomers age, a huge portion of the population will need more and more health care, medicine, etc. I would think the need for pharmacists would only increase, both in retail and in hospitals and other facilities.
2. From what I've been hearing and seeing, pharmacists are very much in demand, with pharmacies popping up on every corner. But I could be wrong.
3. The answer should prove to be just the opposite. At this time, Pharmacists positions are available in the US.
4. right now the demand is high but 10 years down the road i dont know, the future is a toss up. if mail order pharmacy continues to grow (its being pushed heavily by many insurance companies like caremark and medco) it can drastically reduce the amount of pharmacists needed to dispense prescriptions since they are filled mostly by $10/hour technicians and robots with a few pharmacists just looking at the bottles and saying "uh, ok" instead of filling them themselves and talking to people. but others say pharmacy will become more clinical which will create many new jobs, and baby boomers are aging which will increase prescription volume so pharmacists will be in larger demand than they ever have before. so there are some people that say feast, some people that say famine. who knows what will happen in the future. personally, i think the future will be somewhere between. current pharmacy jobs might disappear some due to mail order, but there is a huge and growing nursing shortage so pharmacists might gain a new niche in the healthcare community. also, if things get bad the major chains have a powerful lobby. mail order bends a lot of laws, and if profits start to fall, walgreens, CVS, etc. will probably call the mail order companies on it. but yeah, i have the same worries as you.