Monday, November 28, 2011

Wow! Bimodal distribution in lawyer salaries

Adam is blogging a series on the possibility of a higher education bubble; he posts this graph of lawyer salary distributions. 

That is remarkable. I don't think a graph of industrial chemist salaries would have such a bimodal distribution, but I can't say for sure. Readers? 
Posted by at
Labels:

7 comments:

  1. bbooooooyaNovember 28, 2011 at 11:28 AM

    I imagine if chemist salaries don't already have that type of bimodality they soon will. On the high end will be those at big pharma/biotechs who remain. On the low (albeit greater AUC) end will be those stuck at CROs. I assume that at some point the high end (employed at big pharma) will equilibrate closer to the CRO pharm teams.

    Worse for the CROs (created to more cheaply do research) is that they have to compete with CROs in the PRC (who are really good at cheap research): this saves on salaries and benefits off the top, but also downstream (literally) in lax enforcement of environmental laws.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 28, 2011 at 11:32 AM

    Sure they would. For every industrial PhD chemist who makes 120 there is one who makes 50.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unstable IsotopeNovember 28, 2011 at 3:26 PM

    I bet you would see a bimodal distribution in the salaries of professors, depending on what kind of institution they are teaching at. I can't believe how low the pay is for professors at mid-level universities. Lower than the starting salary for PhD chemists in industry.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're PfizeredNovember 28, 2011 at 4:43 PM

    I bet you would see a bimodal distribution in the salaries of professors, depending on what kind of institution they are teaching at. I can't believe how low the pay is for professors at mid-level universities. Lower than the starting salary for PhD chemists in industry.

    When I graduated with my masters degree and took a position in pharma way back when, my adviser told me that I would be making more than he was as an assistant professor.

    I just looked up a database for my graduate department. With my years in the industry, I easily make more than all associate professors and a fair number of full professors. I did not go to a mid-level university either.

    Starting PhD salaries would pretty much do the same, if anyone were hiring...

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousNovember 28, 2011 at 5:50 PM

    I know BS's who started in industry at mid-50k, and PhD's who started at small colleges at below 40.

    ReplyDelete
  6. SelinaNovember 29, 2011 at 4:35 PM

    @Unstable Isotope and @You're Pfizered

    Agreed. I looked at the public record pay scale for the school I went to, and it's surprisingly LOW. Hope no one goes for a academic job for the money, they would be very disappointed.

    ReplyDelete
  7. See Arr OhNovember 29, 2011 at 10:21 PM

    Not to rock the boat, but we're all overlooking a large pharma populace: the "2-8 year experience" group. I'd wager that, with hiring flat and mass layoffs, this group probably (guesstimate) represents 60% of all chemists right now.

    This group will have had a few raises, but hasn't yet penetrated the "manager bracket" of salary. Therefore, I'd expect a less dramatic bimodal distribution, with a healthy raised middle.

    ReplyDelete

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)