Walgreens freezes salary

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OXYFORALL said:
Whats the average salary for other professions which require six years of college? My wife has a bs in nursing and has a base salary of 85k/yr plus bonus. You can't say $50/hr isn't bad without comparing it to other jobs which require a large investment in college. Local train engineers around here can make the same without college. Add up the money a chain pharmacy makes and compare it to the amount they send to the employees including pharmacists. Say $9 gross profit per rx times 300/day. $2700 gp while paying the rph $600 for a 12 hour day plus another $100 for benefits. i think its obvious at $50/hr rphs are being screwed.
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I agree that investment in time and tuition should be proportional to the salary in theory. However, the reality could be far away from the theory. Roto Rooter who could easily make 6 figure salary with no school. People in electrical, HVAC, automotive go to trade school for 2 years could also getting 6 figure salary as some have shared. Of course there are always variance in working conditions. But ask yourself, 50% of college grad under-employed who carry loans, why did they not get paid more and got the jobs they wanted?

Jeff Bezos earn 260 millions dollars a day and pay shipper $15 dollars an hour. It is not about how much CEOs make, and how over compensated they are. Regardless how profitable the organization is, they pay you based on perceived value you bring and accepted wage you need before you jump ship. At the end of the day, it goes back to supply and demand. Pharmacists had upper hands for years, getting bonus, cars. Did anyone turn that down? So why complain when employer now has the upper hand and try to lower our salary?

Even hospital have remote order entry and mail order process to streamline work loads. Be glad that our jobs have not been able to be outsourced, at least not to other countries. Folks, tighten your belts, it will get worse before it get better. Retail pharmacist, and new grads; please pick up other skill sets, you are now a commodity and expandable. Newly minted district manager will always use you as stepping stones.
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Police officers with high school diplomas make $50/hr or more and they all rack up overtime hours at 1.5x or more pay.

All these pre pharms whose "dream" or "passion" is to become a pharmacist will start having new dreams and passions lol.
 
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What’s the point of these comparasions?

Not many pharmacists look like police/firefighter “type” to me.
 
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Bottom line is don't be buying any big ticket items and save everything you can.
 
ornithoptor said:
Pharmacists had upper hands for years, getting bonus, cars. Did anyone turn that down? So why complain when employer now has the upper hand and try to lower our salary?
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Because this negativity affects your livelihood.

I'll never understand the mindset of someone who wants to be "fair" with their employer. You should be looking out for yourself and your profession, not your employer. They would chain you to your station and force you to work for free if they could.

Do you also not negotiate a higher salary when starting a new job? Do you feel your employer is justified in reducing hours, increasing workload, and slashing pay?
 
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gwarm01 said:
Because this negativity affects your livelihood.

I'll never understand the mindset of someone who wants to be "fair" with their employer. You should be looking out for yourself and your profession, not your employer. They would chain you to your station and force you to work for free if they could.

Do you also not negotiate a higher salary when starting a new job? Do you feel your employer is justified in reducing hours, increasing workload, and slashing pay?
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I agree with you 100%. I took every sign on bonus at every hospitals I worked. I actually was not offered bonus from one retail job I had. If any employer who attempt to reduce my pay, I may attempt to find other jobs if they are readily available. But the question is: are the jobs readily available?.

Please know that my analysis take no sides, and I am not trying to address salary reduction concerns from individual prospective. I simply try to provide an analysis not solutions to our dilemma. I am not advocating pharmacist to try any less harder to gain respect and money. However, I just wanted to paint a picture for us all knowing the situation we are in and what would we do if the table is turned. Even attempt to help so angry pharmacist to understand where this is coming from. I did not suggest to take this laying down, everyone is free to look for other jobs, if available.

Salary reduction is not unusual from corporate stand point. it is not what we want to hear when we are the one being singled out this time. Remember when auto worker making $36 dollars an hour by reading any books in the library, no copay on Viagra and company was bailed out the by the tax payers? Would the tax payer wanted to see salary and benefit reduction? But, like you shared, the employee who took advantage of that offer would not wish to relinquish that.

Walgreens is smart just to lower the salary for the incoming new grads. Writing is on that wall that Walgreens likely will replace current workforce with new comer who is paid 14% under in the near future. So, should current employee offer own salary reduction to achieve salary parity, so their job security will be ensured in the future? Should we watch our own interests, of interest of profession? Do you think current staff and manager should join the fight on behalf of the new comer asking Walgreens to offer more for the new grads? Has anyone done that, sending letters to DM, or corporate? What would you do, do you make a stand a possibly jeopardize your job?

Someone else mentioned in other posts: This is a correction. Well, it is.
 
allantois said:
What’s the point of these comparasions?

Not many pharmacists look like police/firefighter “type” to me.
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There are plenty of jobs making 100K+ with minimal student loans; pharmacy is going on a slow death right now, risk and reward is not justified.

If you aren't doing anything to diversify your income sources, you are fu3ked sooner or later. Worst case scenario if I quit pharmacy and I need to generate income, I will sell all my stocks and get 10% cap rate on rental properties in cheap states and I will still make the same $ as rph. I have some ideas on creating a Youtube channel. I am learning how to code as a hobby; this might translate into getting a remote coding job in a few years.
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There is no "type"... No matter what the job is, you train for it.
 
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Momus said:
There are plenty of jobs making 100K+ with minimal student loans; pharmacy is going on a slow death right now, risk and reward is not justified.

If you aren't doing anything to diversify your income sources, you are fu3ked sooner or later. Worst case scenario if I quit pharmacy and I need to generate income, I will sell all my stocks and get 10% cap rate on rental properties in cheap states and I will still make the same $ as rph. I have some ideas on creating a Youtube channel. I am learning how to code as a hobby; this might translate into getting a remote coding job in a few years.
​
There is no "type"... No matter what the job is, you train for it.
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I'll be your first subscriber
 
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MatCauthon said:
hospital pharmacists think this does not apply to them. if Walgreens lowers starting wages to low 50s them the national average will start skewing downward. hospitals pay to have access to regional and national salary ranges. do think other companies will not hesitate to lower starting wages when the average skews lower?
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Only newbie hospital pharmacists think that. My first hospital job was $15.50/hr...15 years later I was making $42/hr. This was solely because hospitals had to increase their salaries in order to keep pharmacists on staff....because so many pharmacists were going to chains where they were making incredibly more than they were at hospital. It's incredible, doing the same job, and my salary almost tripled in 15 years. I don't doubt that it could skew down just as quickly.

ornithoptor said:
I agree with your assessment. However, having working in multiple hospital systems for a while, I do want to point something out:
In most hospital systems I worked with, we have min and max for salary level. Max is 150% of the Min usually. Thus, new grad who make $50 per hours can make $75 in 15 years.
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Hospital's current min and max is based on retail pharmacy. Hospitals can get away with paying less than retail, to a certain extent, because of lifestyle benefits they offer. There is no doubt the minimum and maximum will be adjusted downward to match decreasing retail salaries.

we still get annual increase like rest of the hospital employees do(hospital could/would not single us out).
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I agree, I don't think hospitals would single out the pharmacy department. However, many hospitals are outsourcing the pharmacy department, in which case the pharmacists no longer are considered employees for the hospital.

Even working for a hospital, I have been in 2 different hospitals that quit giving raises for a few years (hospital wide affecting all employees), officially because of financial issues the hospital was having. So no, there is no guarantee that you will always have a raise, even if you work for a hospital.
 
Was there any confirmation of the new pay rate for pharmacists licensed after September 1?
 
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Actinomycin said:
Was there any confirmation of the new pay rate for pharmacists licensed after September 1?
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Yup got an offer recently for $54.90 / hour 32 hours guaranteed. DFW Area. My friend got a grad intern offer earlier this year for $29 / hour ( Rph rate $58/hour) in same area. Another reason to get the f*** out of this profession if you are considering it or in your first year of Pharmacy school.
 
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ImmunoglobulinE said:
Yup got an offer recently for $54.90 / hour 32 hours guaranteed. DFW Area. My friend got a grad intern offer earlier this year for $29 / hour ( Rph rate $58/hour) in same area. Another reason to get the f*** out of this profession if you are considering it or in your first year of Pharmacy school.
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So 90k guaranteed to work retail and put up with crazy metrics and trying to sell flu shots like used cars. Yeah I would say this profession's ROI is decreasing. Keep taking out those crazy student loans kids!
 
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ImmunoglobulinE said:
Yup got an offer recently for $54.90 / hour 32 hours guaranteed. DFW Area. My friend got a grad intern offer earlier this year for $29 / hour ( Rph rate $58/hour) in same area. Another reason to get the f*** out of this profession if you are considering it or in your first year of Pharmacy school.
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Where did you go to school? Just wondering since I'm in DFW area. Which company did you get the offer from?
 
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ImmunoglobulinE said:
Yup got an offer recently for $54.90 / hour 32 hours guaranteed. DFW Area. My friend got a grad intern offer earlier this year for $29 / hour ( Rph rate $58/hour) in same area. Another reason to get the f*** out of this profession if you are considering it or in your first year of Pharmacy school.
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The rumor was $47/h for starting pharmacists.
 
The new rate in new york city is 51.90/hr X32hrs =86,000. Crazy.
 
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Taken from reddit.
Confirmed on conference call: Walgreens is increasing hours for pharmacists but will not be giving additional pay

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Before it was a rumor but now it’s been confirmed by corporate. This is mostly affecting pharmacists who converted from Rite Aid who are not yet working the standard 84/80 hour biweekly schedule that Walgreens requires. Most Rite Aid stores were on 77 hour schedules, so they are adding 7 hours onto pharmacy managers and 3 hours onto staff pharmacists, but said there will be no additional pay because only an increase of 8 hours or more qualifies for additional pay. So all pharmacists will remain at their current annual salary but will have their hours increased to match up with Walgreens’ model.

lol paycut...
 
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Momus said:
Taken from reddit.
Confirmed on conference call: Walgreens is increasing hours for pharmacists but will not be giving additional pay

renderTimingPixel.png

Before it was a rumor but now it’s been confirmed by corporate. This is mostly affecting pharmacists who converted from Rite Aid who are not yet working the standard 84/80 hour biweekly schedule that Walgreens requires. Most Rite Aid stores were on 77 hour schedules, so they are adding 7 hours onto pharmacy managers and 3 hours onto staff pharmacists, but said there will be no additional pay because only an increase of 8 hours or more qualifies for additional pay. So all pharmacists will remain at their current annual salary but will have their hours increased to match up with Walgreens’ model.

lol paycut...
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It isn't like CVS where they have your salary based on your weekly hours?
 
Anyone else feeling more and more pressure to be extra early or stay late after their shift? Seems like they're cutting the tech hours and rph hours and giving us every reason to stay late (aka work for free) just to catch up. If we dont, maybe we'll start getting written up for subpar performance?... hm. I dont even see other rphs taking a lunch break really anymore if there is sufficient overlap...
 
Wag upper management told all new pharmacists were starting at $51/hr down from $56/hr and that it was due to Medicare Star ratings and adherence. luls... more cuts.

Pay cut, more work, pay freeze. Triple whammy.
 
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Momus said:
Wag upper management told all new pharmacists were starting at $51/hr down from $56/hr and that it was due to Medicare Star ratings and adherence. luls... more cuts.

Pay cut, more work, pay freeze. Triple whammy.
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ask wagrxm what was announced today about rxm bonus. quadruple whammy
 
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When are people going to realize how supply and demand work.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
When are people going to realize how supply and demand work.
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So the answer to the question “why did Walgreens treat you so well” was as simple as “the laws of supply and demand”? Anticlimactic.
 
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owlegrad said:
So the answer to the question “why did Walgreens treat you so well” was as simple as “the laws of supply and demand”? Anticlimactic.
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I can't believe people are taking over this thread when there's a perfectly fine thread to post this at already made.

But yes those laws have treated me well over the years to a salary I never planned on having unlike these new grads. And like those laws, it's now the opposite but I'm not the one that didn't do a little research before joining this profession
 
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ImmunoglobulinE said:
Yup got an offer recently for $54.90 / hour 32 hours guaranteed. DFW Area. My friend got a grad intern offer earlier this year for $29 / hour ( Rph rate $58/hour) in same area. Another reason to get the f*** out of this profession if you are considering it or in your first year of Pharmacy school.
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Hm that’s actually same if not higher than when I was hired 3 years ago. My starting rate was $28.75 as grad intern and then $95,680 as salaried pharmacist for 32 hours per week. But I made more than that because floaters were still in high demand and where they were willing to pay overtime more often.
 
ChalupaBatman86 said:
Supply and demand applies to commodities. You are saying you believe you are just a commodity. One pharmacy license is equal to another. You are as interchangeable as a black jack dealer. You have nothing unique or special to contribute.


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Economic 101 right there. Post of the day.


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Post of the year...

ChalupaBatman86 said:
Supply and demand applies to commodities. You are saying you believe you are just a commodity. One pharmacy license is equal to another. You are as interchangeable as a black jack dealer. You have nothing unique or special to contribute.


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I am not sure if people are agreeing or disagreeing with me, but I have managed, hired, and fired pharmacists for many years. You are not all equal. Good pharmacists and especially pharmacy managers are worth a premium and should demand one.


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ChalupaBatman86 said:
I am not sure if people are agreeing or disagreeing with me, but I have managed, hired, and fired pharmacists for many years. You are not all equal. Good pharmacists and especially pharmacy managers are worth a premium and should demand one.


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You've clearly not hired in retail, we are all equal in their minds.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
You've clearly not hired in retail, we are all equal in their minds.
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Wrong. Management knows there are some pharmacists that are better working retail and management also has their favorites (not necessarily the same in both groups). They just want you to believe that all pharmacists are created equal and there are no jobs out there so that you will be a passive retail zombie.
 
johnpharm01 said:
Wrong. Management knows there are some pharmacists that are better working retail and management also has their favorites (not necessarily the same in both groups). They just want you to believe that all pharmacists are created equal and there are no jobs out there so that you will be a passive retail zombie.
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Yes people like me are favorites and don't have to worry but the vast majority are all equal.
 
Its tough to drink the kool aid after selling it for so long.
 
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ChalupaBatman86 said:
I am not sure if people are agreeing or disagreeing with me, but I have managed, hired, and fired pharmacists for many years. You are not all equal. Good pharmacists and especially pharmacy managers are worth a premium and should demand one.


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Click to expand...

When corporate decides to do layoffs, middle managers aren't the ones that get to pick and choose. An outside contractor uses some arbitrary bull**** to decide who gets the axe. The best pharmacist in the region will get laid off if the algorithm says so. To corporate -- we are all equal in that we are a cost of doing business that they don't actually want to pay.
 
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ChalupaBatman86 said:
I am not sure if people are agreeing or disagreeing with me, but I have managed, hired, and fired pharmacists for many years. You are not all equal. Good pharmacists and especially pharmacy managers are worth a premium and should demand one.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
Click to expand...
Yeeeikes!!!..You tied in to some heavy duty Kool Aid there Maynard.....This is one of the dumbest so called professions I have encountered...but has treated me fairly well with the money.... for a mind numbing but ultimately routine job...Fortunately....I have had some heavy duty but fun/interesting jobs..to make up for the drudge work...LISTEN UP newbies.....steer clear of this job or take the consequences....
 
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No one commands a premium in today’s market. Doesn’t matter how “talented” you are. You are at the mercy of what employers give you. And what they are giving is gradually going down each year.
 
projektreverb said:
No one commands a premium in today’s market. Doesn’t matter how “talented” you are. You are at the mercy of what employers give you. And what they are giving is gradually going down each year.
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This isn't true in hospital pharmacy.

Of course in hospital pharmacy we have the golden gates of residency which causes an artificial limitation on the effect of the increasing numbers of new graduates.

By 2020 I believe hospital pharmacy will start new grad PGY1s at a higher rate than WAG and CVS.
 
It is sad so many pharmacists have such low self esteem they think a license and a pulse is the only value they contribute. If that is your view than I guess you do have accept whatever crumbs they choose to toss your way. Glad I never viewed myself that way!


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