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UBC Pharmacy Applications 2019/2020 - Class of 2024


Sharron

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I suggest to everyone to look up "Off the Script" on Spotify or Apple podcast. It's a podcast created by Ontario pharmacy students in their last year/graduated, and they give interesting information about the job market, residency, etc.

 

Plus, I dont know about others graduates, but after graduation im open to going to rural for a few years to pay off the debt at the very least, unless I get accepted into a residency (have always been interested in hospital pharmacy)

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"For Pharmacists, over the period 2019-2028, new job openings (arising from expansion demand and replacement demand) are expected to total 12,500 , while 16,600 new job seekers (arising from school leavers, immigration and mobility) are expected to be available to fill them." -Job Bank Canada

 

https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketreport/outlook-occupation/18196/ca

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11 minutes ago, Bluegleam said:

"For Pharmacists, over the period 2019-2028, new job openings (arising from expansion demand and replacement demand) are expected to total 12,500 , while 16,600 new job seekers (arising from school leavers, immigration and mobility) are expected to be available to fill them." -Job Bank Canada

 

https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketreport/outlook-occupation/18196/ca

https://www.workbc.ca/careers/3131#insights-from-industry (this is for BC, updated June 10th)

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Not sure if this is completely accurate, these are the stats for projected job openings for the lower mainland/southwest:

Mainland / Southwest

Employment in 2019:
2,820
Average annual employment growth(%) 2019-2029:
0.4%
Expected number of job openings 2019-2029:
590
 

So if UBC graduates 224 students per year, and an estimated 80% of those students want to stay in the lower mainland (so 179), there will be 1790 graduates competing for these 590 jobs over the next 10 years?

If the entire province is taken into account and 95% of students want to stay in BC, there would be 2128 (224*10*0.95) graduates competing for 970 predicted job openings?

These are all rough estimations and I haven’t accounted for IPGs but this seems on the low side. I can count over 260 retail pharmacies and 21 hospitals in metro Vancouver alone, yet only 590 job openings in an entire decade for this area? That would be an average of 59 per year, which I find it hard to believe given the amount of pharmacies and hospitals in the area. Unless workbc’s definition of a “job opening” is a full time permanent position, which then would somewhat make sense given the amount of floating and part-time work that happens at the beginning of one’s career.

Otherwise, just by data alone there would be an estimated 46% (970/2128) chance of landing a job offer after graduation? I’m trying to make sense of the numbers but unless I’m doing this wrong it seems… bad. 

Also how do RNs have a projected 19580 openings, and lawyers have a projected 5160 openings, while pharmacists have 970? 

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2 hours ago, lunacaptain said:

Not sure if this is completely accurate, these are the stats for projected job openings for the lower mainland/southwest:

Mainland / Southwest

Employment in 2019:
2,820
Average annual employment growth(%) 2019-2029:
0.4%
Expected number of job openings 2019-2029:
590
 

So if UBC graduates 224 students per year, and an estimated 80% of those students want to stay in the lower mainland (so 179), there will be 1790 graduates competing for these 590 jobs over the next 10 years?

If the entire province is taken into account and 95% of students want to stay in BC, there would be 2128 (224*10*0.95) graduates competing for 970 predicted job openings?

These are all rough estimations and I haven’t accounted for IPGs but this seems on the low side. I can count over 260 retail pharmacies and 21 hospitals in metro Vancouver alone, yet only 590 job openings in an entire decade for this area? That would be an average of 59 per year, which I find it hard to believe given the amount of pharmacies and hospitals in the area. Unless workbc’s definition of a “job opening” is a full time permanent position, which then would somewhat make sense given the amount of floating and part-time work that happens at the beginning of one’s career.

Otherwise, just by data alone there would be an estimated 46% (970/2128) chance of landing a job offer after graduation? I’m trying to make sense of the numbers but unless I’m doing this wrong it seems… bad. 

Also how do RNs have a projected 19580 openings, and lawyers have a projected 5160 openings, while pharmacists have 970? 

If I am not mistaken, I am pretty sure that this Work BC website only lists data for government jobs. Many pharmacy jobs are not governmental and there are pharmacists working for other organizations such as Sobeys, Walmart, etc or they are self-employed. I was confused as to why Work BC lists dentists with a salary of approximately 100K (while the average is actually higher) but after doing some research I found out that the data only reflects those dentists that are employed by the government such as those working for Fraser Health, etc and not the ones with a private practice. So the 970 job openings for pharmacists in BC could only reflect government pharmacy jobs??? I am not sure and confused now haha. 

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I went on Indeed and searched Pharmacist in British Columbia (whole province just to make math easier), and within the last 14 days there have already been 28 job postings (mostly FT, some PT, some FT clinical, etc).  These were just on Indeed alone...for the past 14 days. Now, even if we underestimate and let's say on average...30 jobs per month * 12 months = 360 job postings in BC per year. The stats from WorkBC said 970 jobs over 10 years (97 per year) which does not add up to our underestimated 360/year job postings. 

In response to the comment about WorkBC only listing stats for government jobs, I do not think that is the case. WorkBC shows jobs for all fields (e.g. fashion designer, restaurant manager, carpenter, etc.) and these are not  employable jobs by government.

Pharmacy is still a good paying job, especially if you are willing to move out of lower mainland, but the increased tuition for PharmD (80K plus undergrad) is what makes people hesitant about the profession. Before PharmD, tuition used to be 40K approximately which made sense. I still don't get why the tuition increased by 40k... if anyone can clarify it, will much be appreciated.

Things would be MUCH better if regulatory bodies restricted the number of IPGs getting licensed and also preventing UBC from potentially increasing enrolment in future. Maybe one viable solution is to mimic medicine, which is capped by the number of residencies. Pharmacy can put a "cap" through practicums and preceptors.  

 

I am interested to see what everyone thinks

 

 

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8 hours ago, Axon2020 said:

I went on Indeed and searched Pharmacist in British Columbia (whole province just to make math easier), and within the last 14 days there have already been 28 job postings (mostly FT, some PT, some FT clinical, etc).  These were just on Indeed alone...for the past 14 days. Now, even if we underestimate and let's say on average...30 jobs per month * 12 months = 360 job postings in BC per year. The stats from WorkBC said 970 jobs over 10 years (97 per year) which does not add up to our underestimated 360/year job postings. 

In response to the comment about WorkBC only listing stats for government jobs, I do not think that is the case. WorkBC shows jobs for all fields (e.g. fashion designer, restaurant manager, carpenter, etc.) and these are not  employable jobs by government.

Pharmacy is still a good paying job, especially if you are willing to move out of lower mainland, but the increased tuition for PharmD (80K plus undergrad) is what makes people hesitant about the profession. Before PharmD, tuition used to be 40K approximately which made sense. I still don't get why the tuition increased by 40k... if anyone can clarify it, will much be appreciated.

Things would be MUCH better if regulatory bodies restricted the number of IPGs getting licensed and also preventing UBC from potentially increasing enrolment in future. Maybe one viable solution is to mimic medicine, which is capped by the number of residencies. Pharmacy can put a "cap" through practicums and preceptors.  

 

I am interested to see what everyone thinks

 

 

Interesting find and calculation. I do agree that 360 openings per year in the entirety of BC is entirely reasonable given the amount of retail pharmacies and hospitals, so theoretically they should be able to comfortably absorb all of the 224 grads per year. Which is why I'm struggling to understand the root of saturation in the market.

The only explanations could be that 1) BC licenses vastly more IPGs than locals per year 2) New Pharmacy grads are flocking to BC from other provinces (unlikely) 3) the number of Pharmacy positions are vastly cut and phased out (also unlikely due to number of job postings).  

If the workbc numbers were true, then there would be a bottleneck in terms of the number of jobs, but a quick look at indeed poses a different picture, which is truely confusing... 

I don't have hard numbers for IPGs, but it's not like you can write a few licensing exams and start working right away (like for dentistry). You have to go through UBC's CP3 program for 6 months and pass, pay 12k for it, pass the OSCE and then you can get licensed. I'd be surprised if every single international Pharmacist was willing to go through this. I'm going to do more research into the exact number of IPGs licensed per year to confirm whether or not saturation is stemming from that. 

Otherwise, I don't see what the problem is by looking at the numbers themselves. 224 students for 360 jobs (estimated), 80K tuition (more if you consider living expenses) for a job that will minimally make you 80k starting out assuming full time hours . (An hourly rate of $39.00 equates to a weekly pay of $1,560, monthly pay of $6,760, and an annual salary of $81,120.)

In terms of a data point for salary, my dad made 108k last year as a hospital pharmacist in Victoria, BC. Coworkers made anywhere from 90k (staff) to 128k (level 2 specialist). 

Of course, in an ideal world, there would only be 110 or so students for those 360 jobs, tuition would only be 40k, and we would be paid 100k right away after school at 23 years of age, but that's the result of supply and demand unfortunately. In regards to the tuition increase, I heard rumors that UBC had to pay off their 300 million dollar pharmacy building they had just built but I'm leaning more in the direction that they just wanted to profit more off the program and decided to do it as it switched to a PharmD from Bsc. 

Moving forwards, it would be much better if BC could limit the number of IPGs and have government funded post- graduation mandatory residencies spots much like medicine, but one can only dream.

 

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7 minutes ago, lunacaptain said:

Interesting find and calculation. I do agree that 360 openings per year in the entirety of BC is entirely reasonable given the amount of retail pharmacies and hospitals, so theoretically they should be able to comfortably absorb all of the 224 grads per year. Which is why I'm struggling to understand the root of saturation in the market.

The only explanations could be that 1) BC licenses vastly more IPGs than locals per year 2) New Pharmacy grads are flocking to BC from other provinces (unlikely) 3) the number of Pharmacy positions are vastly cut and phased out (also unlikely due to number of job postings).  

If the workbc numbers were true, then there would be a bottleneck in terms of the number of jobs, but a quick look at indeed poses a different picture, which is truely confusing... 

I don't have hard numbers for IPGs, but it's not like you can write a few licensing exams and start working right away (like for dentistry). You have to go through UBC's CP3 program for 6 months and pass, pay 12k for it, pass the OSCE and then you can get licensed. I'd be surprised if every single international Pharmacist was willing to go through this. I'm going to do more research into the exact number of IPGs licensed per year to confirm whether or not saturation is stemming from that. 

Otherwise, I don't see what the problem is by looking at the numbers themselves. 224 students for 360 jobs (estimated), 80K tuition (more if you consider living expenses) for a job that will minimally make you 80k starting out assuming full time hours . (An hourly rate of $39.00 equates to a weekly pay of $1,560, monthly pay of $6,760, and an annual salary of $81,120.)

In terms of a data point for salary, my dad made 108k last year as a hospital pharmacist in Victoria, BC. Coworkers made anywhere from 90k (staff) to 128k (level 2 specialist). 

Of course, in an ideal world, there would only be 110 or so students for those 360 jobs, tuition would only be 40k, and we would be paid 100k right away after school at 23 years of age, but that's the result of supply and demand unfortunately. In regards to the tuition increase, I heard rumors that UBC had to pay off their 300 million dollar pharmacy building they had just built but I'm leaning more in the direction that they just wanted to profit more off the program and decided to do it as it switched to a PharmD from Bsc. 

Moving forwards, it would be much better if BC could limit the number of IPGs and have government funded post- graduation mandatory residencies spots much like medicine, but one can only dream.

 

In terms of New Pharmacy grads flocking to BC from other provinces, I have seen people actually leaving BC and Ontario to move to Alberta, idk why Alberta is so popular for pharmacy. Maybe because the cost of living is less than BC/Ontario?

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15 minutes ago, Axon2020 said:

In terms of New Pharmacy grads flocking to BC from other provinces, I have seen people actually leaving BC and Ontario to move to Alberta, idk why Alberta is so popular for pharmacy. Maybe because the cost of living is less than BC/Ontario?

I've heard the same thing as well, what my dad said was that Alberta pharmacists have a more advanced scope of practice than Ontario or BC and I'm speculating that the saturation isn't as bad? Slightly higher wages though (43 retail 50 hospital). UofA pharmacy is actually quite competitive, with 900 applicants competing for 138 spots! So in general I think Alberta seems to be a "better" province for pharmacists with better wages, less saturation, more advanced scope of practice. Ontario seems to be the worst province, BC is somewhere in the middle.

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9 minutes ago, lunacaptain said:

I've heard the same thing as well, what my dad said was that Alberta pharmacists have a more advanced scope of practice than Ontario or BC and I'm speculating that the saturation isn't as bad? Slightly higher wages though (43 retail 50 hospital). UofA pharmacy is actually quite competitive, with 900 applicants competing for 138 spots! So in general I think Alberta seems to be a "better" province for pharmacists with better wages, less saturation, more advanced scope of practice. Ontario seems to be the worst province, BC is somewhere in the middle.

Even with Ontario having 2 pharmacy schools, and being the largest taker of IPGs, grads still find full-time work relatively well. "Off the Script" podcast provides good info

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2 minutes ago, Axon2020 said:

Even with Ontario having 2 pharmacy schools, and being the largest taker of IPGs, grads still find full-time work relatively well. "Off the Script" podcast provides good info

Yeah I listened to that episode yesterday actually! After reading so much doom and gloom it was surprising to hear that. 

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Personally, I would not do (communtiy) pharmacy without a plan. Not to say what pharmacists do isn't valuable, its crucial but NOT compensated fairly AT ALL in my opinion. Pharmacists are smart and capable and wanting to contribute to the healthcare system. In my opnion, their curriculum is just as rigorous as medicine but the system (and other healthcare providers) in my opinion do not give them a chance. Every so often the government cuts down on pharmacist fees. I know that the government is thinking of rolling out prescribing rights for pharmacists and I really hope it passes because pharmacists deserve more! To summarize,  the UBC pharmacy program is a really good program but, (in my opinion) community pharmacy is in bad shape, compensation wise.  I have an immense respect for pharmacists and the stuff they put with. If you are interested, strive to do clinical or industry pharmacy (PM me and I can give you more information). I don't think the government has any plans to change this anytime soon and with immense student loans many people might  be frustrated with where the program has left them. However, if you feel like you want to try and change this system, then all the power to you!  You can do your own research though, all of this is my opinion and I wish you all the best. 

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26 minutes ago, kingassault said:

Trust me. Do not do pharmacy. It is better to do nothing than pharmacy!

« Nothing but pharmacy « ? Kinda funny! So won’t comment on this part. But would like to remind you that lot’s of people review these threads to perhaps help them get some info and make a decision as what they want to do in the future.  
So please explain why you think people should " avoid pharmacy" rather than leaving it vague like that. 

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9 hours ago, Axon2020 said:

I saw that you got accepted to Queen's med, so congratulations! Wish you all the best

Thanks. I look forward to working intercollaboratively with all of you in the future. I know how hard it can be to be a pharmacist where you work your but off to care for a patient but don’t get appreciation.

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On 7/12/2020 at 12:50 AM, PharmaNet said:

« Nothing but pharmacy « ? Kinda funny! So won’t comment on this part. But would like to remind you that lot’s of people review these threads to perhaps help them get some info and make a decision as what they want to do in the future.  
So please explain why you think people should " avoid pharmacy" rather than leaving it vague like that. 

I mean it’s better to take a gap year than do pharmacy as a backup. If your goal is pharmacy and you have a plan? Then go ahead. In my opinion, you will play a crucial role in the healthcare system but you will not be compensated fairly and so I would recommend people to avoid until the government gives pharmacists get the respect they deserve. Pharmacists are awesome the system is not!
 

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