Job market crash coming

[Taurus]

FYI:

Because of COVID-19, economic activity has literally come to a halt. Stock market is down 30%. Patients are staying at home either because of mandate or fear. Volumes at my practice and across the country have dropped off a cliff. People will delay retirement because their 401k's have been eviscerated. Practices will hold off on hiring. This is a recipe for another crash in the job market. It's coming not just in radiology but it will affect many medical specialties. No one knows how long it will last and when it will be back to normal. Good thing is that radiology is a great field and has a bright future. So hunker down and get ready for the tsunami to roll in and then pass. You heard it here first.

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[maxxor]

FYI:

Because of COVID-19, economic activity has literally come to a halt. Stock market is down 30%. Patients are staying at home either because of mandate or fear. Volumes at my practice and across the country have dropped off a cliff. People will delay retirement because their 401k's have been eviscerated. Practices will hold off on hiring. This is a recipe for another crash in the job market. It's coming not just in radiology but it will affect many medical specialties. No one knows how long it will last and when it will be back to normal. Good thing is that radiology is a great field and has a bright future. So hunker down and get ready for the tsunami to roll in and then pass. You heard it here first.

Any graduating fellows have their start dates delayed? I’m already hearing this.

 

[medradthrowaway]

So we're headed for another cycle of over supply? Why is radiology so tied to the overall economy.

 

[Taurus]

It's not just radiology. If most of your patients stay home, almost no medical specialty will go untouched. If retirement funds have been depleted, people won't retire. It will be a rough patch but radiology will recover but nobody knows when the economy and the stock market will rebound. It depends on the pandemic and how our elected leaders respond. The people who will be completing training now and in 2-3 years probably will be most affected.

 

[SeisK]

Residencies were increasing the number of spots due to the the undersupply. Any thought that this might be reversed?

 

[Radology]

Not only are senior residents and fellows utterly f’ed, I think many fresh hires are about to lose jobs.

Honestly, letting this disease run unchecked would have been a blip on world history and eliminated a lot of the current waste in the medical system by thanos style killing off a population that disproportionately consumes medical resources. Hope it was worth prolonging grandmas life in the nursing home for 6 more years to destroy a generation

 

[maxxor]

This is same generation that graduated college in 2008-2010.

I have heard of multiple fellows who have been told their start dates are being pushed back. Let’s hope they start at all.

 

[Radology]

They won’t. This quarantine has only been 5 days and they’ve already been pushed back on their job start date . How’s another month or 3 gonna go? A second fellowship would be a wise backup option right now

 

[Lifeman]

Is this the 6 year cycle of the radiology job market?

 

[medradthrowaway]

Is this the 6 year cycle of the radiology job market?

Radiology is notorious for this. It's like the hardest hit specialty in medicine. Imagine going through 4 years of med school and 5 years of residency and an extra year of fellowship (almost mandatory these days) and coming into a recession. Jesus. Let's hope it's not like radonc at least.

 

[Taurus]

Our group is trying to push back start dates. We have stopped recruitment activities immediately. So the job postings you see are no longer accurate. We had several positions we were trying to fill too. Now, we find ourselves with too many rads and not enough daily work to keep them busy. Our volumes are down 40%. We are one of the largest private practice groups in the country too. It’s a very fluid and rapidly evolving situation. My tip to everyone is to find a job ASAP, to start ASAP, and to hold onto it as tightly as you can. Don't take that month-long vacation after finishing fellowship to take a roadtrip to see America or trek through Europe. That job may not be there after you get back. A big recession and job market crash are looming over the horizon and moving in fast. You need to find a safe harbor to weather the fast-approaching storm. Fortunately for me, I’m a full partner and firmly established in my group. I will be fine. I think.

 

[maxxor]

Our group is trying to push back start dates. We have stopped recruitment activities immediately. So the job postings you see are no longer accurate. We had several positions we were trying to fill too. Now, we find ourselves with too many rads and not enough daily work to keep them busy. Our volumes are down 40%. We are one of the largest private practice groups in the country too. It’s a very fluid and rapidly evolving situation. My tip to everyone is to find a job ASAP, to start ASAP, and to hold onto it as tightly as you can.

Except everyone knows the fellowships aren’t going to graduate anyone early. The earliest anyone can start is probably 7/2.

 

[Cognovi]

Except everyone knows the fellowships aren’t going to graduate anyone early. The earliest anyone can start is probably 7/2.

Don't some people burn bridges and quit fellowship early?

 

[maxxor]

Don't some people burn bridges and quit fellowship early?

That only works if you are not CAQ and you weren’t hired contingent on fellowship completion...

 

[qxrt]

Diagnostic radiology volumes have been wrecked this week and will probably continue for a while. Have had several colleagues early in their career worry about lay-offs, even. IR side of things, volumes are definitely lower due to canceling elective procedures, but because it's mostly a hospital-based specialty with a significant chunk of procedures being urgent/emergent, not as bad as with diagnostics. I guess there's a silver lining to being in a subspecialty that gets called in relatively often in the middle of the night for procedures. Even Covid isn't going to stop those GI bleeds, PEs, cold legs, septic hydronephrosis, etc cases.

 

[SeisK]

Volumes across the board across many specialties have decreased. My family member orthopod has temporarily closed his practice because they also have simply lost the volume. Primary care is inundated with URIs, but their well visits have plummeted as well.

The economic fallout from this will be weird—I think the stock market will bounce back to where it was more rapidly than after ‘08 because the fundamental aspect of why the crash occurred is different than what happened in ‘08, where 1/3 of all investments were shown to be inherently valueless. This hasn’t occurred this time. I think there will be some mild losses, but not hundreds of thousands to millions per person like in ‘08.

I think if we as a specialty stop residency slot expansion for this year at least until we have a better picture of what things will look like afterward, we’ll all be alright.

 

[Cognovi]

If you're a fellow in this situation, what can you do? Talk to your employer to get assurances?

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Our group is trying to push back start dates. We have stopped recruitment activities immediately. So the job postings you see are no longer accurate. We had several positions we were trying to fill too. Now, we find ourselves with too many rads and not enough daily work to keep them busy. Our volumes are down 40%. We are one of the largest private practice groups in the country too. It’s a very fluid and rapidly evolving situation. My tip to everyone is to find a job ASAP, to start ASAP, and to hold onto it as tightly as you can. Don't take that month-long vacation after finishing fellowship to take a roadtrip to see America or trek through Europe. That job may not be there after you get back. A big recession and job market crash are looming over the horizon and moving in fast. You need to find a safe harbor to weather the fast-approaching storm. Fortunately for me, I’m a full partner and firmly established in my group. I will be fine. I think.

What is your group doing about the dropping revenues? Assigning mandatory unpaid vacation? Looking for more work? Shopping med mal ins or billing? Or just taking the hit financially? Talking to colleagues around the state, there has been a drop in revenue and volume over the past several months.

 

[Timtom98]

I'm also guessing that the older working radiologists want to keep working until their retirement portfolio recovers.

Pushes up supply of radiologists as they delay retirement and new fellows enter the market.

Once markets recover, there will be a mass exodus and again....another big demand for radiologists.

Hopefully this breaks up the big radiology corporations and we can once again have more small physician owned groups with an emphasis on work/life balance

 

[medradthrowaway]

I'm also guessing that the older working radiologists want to keep working until their retirement portfolio recovers.

Pushes up supply of radiologists as they delay retirement and new fellows enter the market.

Once markets recover, there will be a mass exodus and again....another big demand for radiologists.

Hopefully this breaks up the big radiology corporations and we can once again have more small physician owned groups with an emphasis on work/life balance

That was the main thing that killed the job market after 2008 as well. People put off their retirement plans.

 

[Radology]

Update:

radiology has fully recovered in most of the country, maybe even above baseline imaging volumes

the Job market will still be hurting, as groups will likely be hesitant to hire while the pandemic uncertainty looms. But I think this will be a short lived crash

 

[808s&heartbreak]

Update:

radiology has fully recovered in most of the country, maybe even above baseline imaging volumes

the Job market will still be hurting, as groups will likely be hesitant to hire while the pandemic uncertainty looms. But I think this will be a short lived crash

can confirm that for my institution. The winning strategy for any firm is to hire right now. If you dont, then all the top candidates will be first to go and unavailable.

 

[thatsrad]

Can confirm my institution resumed hiring last month. Also, being in the hunt recently, many places have started recruiting again besides the corporates (who never stopped). Job market has rebounded, although most locations aren’t as desperate as they were 8-12 months ago and have more candidates to choose from.

 

[Spikebd]

Stocks at all time highs. Will older partners cash out ?

 

[Timtom98]

freezing cold takes. glad we rebounded. but now our next big issue..when is radpartner gonna stop its warpath?

controlling so many radiologists is gonna push salaries down. for christs sake they dont even match retirement

 

[Cognovi]

freezing cold takes. glad we rebounded. but now our next big issue..when is radpartner gonna stop its warpath?

controlling so many radiologists is gonna push salaries down. for christs sake they dont even match retirement

Can you tell us more? Is matching retirement an expectation? Is retirement matching a national Radpartners policy or is it determined by the individual local practice that Radpartners purports to allow set compensation policies autonomously?

 

[2brads]

A lot (most maybe) pp will just fund a retirement account for you. Matching would be the minimum expectation and no retirement contribution is unusually stingy.

 

[Neopolymath]

A lot (most maybe) pp will just fund a retirement account for you. Matching would be the minimum expectation and no retirement contribution is unusually stingy.

I don't understand physicians sometimes. Some of the dumbest smart people I know, consistently. The guy at the register at Home Depot has retirement matching and he doesn't make his company hundreds of thousands of dollars each year being an employee.

Guys, stop taking these employed positions. They aren't just getting a small cut. They are taking huge advantage of you to employee you and you aren't even getting the benefits of being employed like any other decent job in America. Only in medicine are we having this conversation.

 

[Radology]

Don't be blinded by salary alone.

Some Radpartners starting salaries look very competitive. Why? Because you don't realize that they're not paying for your health insurance (10-20k a year), not funding your retirement (~20-50k a year), putting you on call twice as often (which should be paid proportionally), and making you do the job of 1.5 - 2 radiologists.

Being a worker bee for radpartners means youre probably generating 900K in collections, yet taking less than half of that home pre-tax