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Retail Fairy Tale

TL;DR - Retail’s reputation of higher wages may not actually be the case anymore.

It is no secret there are a lot of retail pharmacists who are unhappy with their working conditions. This topic even started to make national news during the height of COVID. Unfortunately, working conditions and ultimately job satisfaction have not seemed to improve. So why do pharmacists continue to stay in retail? Turns out, one of the main reasons is a fairy tale: Retail pharmacists are compensated better than other pharmacy settings.

Pharmacist Compensation analyzed data from Staff Pharmacists over the last six quarters (Q1 2023 - Q2 2024) in various settings. Earlier comments about job satisfaction in the retail pharmacy setting was not speculation. It was confirmed in the data. Compared to other settings, retail pharmacists consistently reported the lowest job satisfaction in every quarter. Moreover, the job satisfaction score never cracked a score of 6 (out of 10 being highest satisfaction).

Now let’s discuss the fairy tale. In almost every quarter, retail staff pharmacists consistently reported the lowest median annual wages. The below graph compares only the new data submitted in each quarter.

Combining all six quarters into one graph doesn’t impact the storyline. Over this timeframe, staff pharmacists from the retail setting reported the lowest median annual wages and lowest job satisfaction.

This newsletter is not meant to bash retail pharmacists. The point is to provide real world data to disprove a common myth. Don’t hold yourself back from applying to other jobs because of a false notion of lower compensation. Chances are, you’ll make more money and have higher job satisfaction.

_{Pharmacist Compensation provided the data displayed in the above charts. Join thousands of pharmacists and take the anonymous survey. All participants receive access to an interactive dashboard that can be filtered by Job Title, Company, Area of Pharmacy, and more.}

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