1. HELPING CHEMISTS FIND JOBS IN A TOUGH MARKET. 2. TOWARDS A QUANTITATIVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE QUALITY OF THE CHEMISTRY JOB MARKET.
Common Organic Chemistry is resolving some technical difficulties, but has ported over the list to Google Drive for now. There are 30 new positions for September 29.
Don't forget to check out the Common Organic Chemistry company map, a very helpful resource for organic chemists looking for potential employers.
Via organic-chemistry.org, a link to the job market section.
The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board on Sept. 24 approved two final reports on accidents that killed six workers. The reports were critical of AB Specialty Silicones of Waukegan, Illinois, where four workers were killed May 3, 2019, and an Evergreen Packaging paper mill in Canton, North Carolina, where two workers died Sept. 21, 2020.The silicones plant was making a silicon hydride emulsion when a flammable vapor cloud developed and ignited, causing an explosion and fire. In addition to the deaths, a fifth employee was seriously injured. The CSB found that workers inadvertently mixed several incompatible chemical compounds that were stored near each other in nearly identical drums, generating hydrogen gas that ignited.The facility lacked an adequate ventilation system and a working alarm system, the CSB noted.
It was surprising to me that the various chemicals were all in 55-gallon blue drums. They could be easily confused, although there are plenty of ways (different staging sites, double-sign offs, ID verification) that you could stop operators from charging the wrong reagents into reactors.
DECATUR, Ala. (WAFF) - Another Daikin America employee has died after he was exposed to a dangerous chemical in July.A source confirmed on Tuesday the death of Will Delashaw. Delashaw was in UAB’s ICU trying to recover from chemical exposure when he passed away.Delashaw had a pending lawsuit against Daikin over that exposure incident filed just weeks ago. According to Delashsaw’s attorneys, he was exposed in the same incident that killed Daikin employee Wesley Rusk in August.During the July 2021 incident, Delashaw, Rusk, and another employee were exposed to chemicals at Daikin in July. That next month, Rusk died from complications of exposure, and now only one of the employees from that incident is still alive. Delashaw’s attorney Kendall Dunson says Delashaw never learned what chemical he was exposed to, and that he was wearing PPE at the time of the exposure.
The 2022 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 279 research/teaching positions and 18 teaching positions.
Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.Don't forget to click on "load more" below the comment box for the full thread.
The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List has 35 positions. It is curated by Lilian Josephson (@lljosephson).
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The Academic Staff Jobs list has 27 positions.
This list is curated by Sarah Cady and @nmr_chemist. It targets:
Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.
Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.
Katalin Kariko, a senior vice president at BioNTech, and Dr. Drew Weissman, a professor in vaccine research at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, shared this year’s Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.In retrospect, their 2005 breakthrough was apparent when Dr. Kariko and Dr. Weissman proudly published a surprising finding they had made about messenger RNA, also known as mRNA, which provides instructions to cells to make proteins. The scientists noticed that when they added mRNA to cells, the cells instantly destroyed it. But they could prevent that destruction by slightly modifying the mRNA. When they added the altered mRNA to cells, it could briefly prompt cells to make any protein they chose.
I wouldn't be opposed to Kariko and Weissman winning the Medicine or the Chemistry Nobel this year, but we shall see.
A surge in natural gas prices in the UK is rippling through the economy, temporarily shutting down a fertilizer plant and threatening the availability of meats and packaged food.Faced with high prices for natural gas, CF Industries idled two British ammonia plants on Sept. 15. And because the plants also supply 60% of the UK’s food-grade CO2, the closures put some of the country’s food industry in danger of seizing up.A food production crisis has been averted, at least for now. CF is restarting the ammonia plants after the UK government agreed to subsidize them for the next 3 weeks. Officials aren’t specifying how much they are paying CF, but UK Environment Secretary George Eustice told the BBC’s Radio 4 program that “It’s into the millions.”...UK slaughterhouses use CO2 to stun millions of animals each week, and without it they can’t accept shipments from farmers. CO2 is also widely used to fill food packages to extend their shelf life, and it is the gas that goes into fizzy drinks.The price of natural gas in the UK has tripled since the start of the year and is now five times that of the US. UK natural gas production is down 28% so far this year compared with 2020, according to the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. Record high coal prices, booming Asian natural gas demand, and limited growth in supplies from Russia have added to the problem, Wood Mackenzie states.Food-grade CO2 shortages could extend beyond the UK. High natural gas prices in mainland Europe in the past week caused the fertilizer producer Yara International to cut its European ammonia production by about 40%.The record gas prices are affecting other segments of the chemical industry as well. For example, Huntsman recently announced that it has added a natural gas surcharge of about $150 per metric ton on the methylene diphenyl diisocyanate, a polyurethane intermediate, it sells in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India.
The wacky supply chain issues started by COVID seem to continue and continue...
Container ships were lined up this week off the coast of Southern California, waiting to deliver cargo at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. The backup offered another sign of the supply chain woes bedeviling businesses across the globe.Sixty-one vessels were anchored offshore on Thursday waiting to unload cargo, down from a record 73 on Sunday, said Capt. J. Kipling Louttit, the executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a nonprofit that works in partnership with the Coast Guard to provide data on maritime commerce.In addition to the anchored ships, 29 were adrift up to 20 miles offshore, meaning they were so far from the coast that their anchors could not reach the ocean floor. That’s down from a record of 37 set on Monday, Captain Louttit said, but the traffic is not abating.
Common Organic Chemistry is resolving some technical difficulties, but has ported over the list to Google Drive for now. There are 52 new positions for September 19.
Don't forget to check out the Common Organic Chemistry company map, a very helpful resource for organic chemists looking for potential employers.
My point is that near the end of graduate school, most people want to make money and mentally recover. Usually, mental recovery in a post-doc is not a real thing. The idea of wanting a stable 40 hour per week job with benefits and a big enough salary to go out to lunch every day and buy Starbucks lattes without going broke is a Rich Life to most graduate students. A bunch of students just want to make more money, it’s what I wanted, and while others might want to become professors and not care about anything else (good luck).My advice to the graduate students out there is that if they want to explore doing a start-up and they have a supportive thesis adviser and department then you should go for it. There are a few things you can do to attract investors’ capital.
I don't wish to turn this into a personal finance rant, but the thought of going out to lunch every day alarms my budget meter, but I still know what people mean. It's no fun eating the same pot of chili for the next week, and there are times when a coffee drink feels like an intense luxury. When I started my postdoc, it really felt like a financial weight was lifted off my shoulders (my postdoc salary was ~2X my grad student salary, because it was an industry postdoc).
Regarding startups, I think Tony is definitely leaning in the right direction - it makes you wonder if there should be a portion of candidate exams or proposal defenses where students can either turn a proposal into a grant application (for the academically-oriented) or a project proposal for a startup or an industrial project proposal...
The 2022 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 240 research/teaching positions and 13 teaching positions.
Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.Don't forget to click on "load more" below the comment box for the full thread.
The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List has 25 positions. It is curated by Lilian Josephson (@lljosephson).
Want to talk? Go to this year's open thread.
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To submit information, click here or e-mail chembumpercars@gmail.com
The Academic Staff Jobs list has 39 positions.
This list is curated by Sarah Cady and @nmr_chemist. It targets:
Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.
Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.
Via CNBC, the chemist level of the Theranos story:
SAN JOSE, CALIF. – A former Theranos scientist testified Friday that Elizabeth Holmes pressured her to validate blood test results from the company’s Edison machine to speed up a rollout in Walgreens despite problems with the device’s accuracy.
Surekha Gangakhedkar, a senior scientist at Theranos for eight years who reported directly to Holmes, testified that she returned from a vacation in August 2013 and discovered that Theranos was about to launch its Edison blood-testing devices in Walgreens stores.
“I was very stressed and unhappy and concerned with the way the launch was going” Gangakhedkar said. “I was not comfortable with the plans that they had in place so I made a decision to resign and not continue working there.”
Gangakhedkar recalled meeting with Holmes in September 2013 about the issues that prompted her resignation. “At that time she mentioned that she has promised to deliver to the customers and didn’t have much of a choice then to go ahead with the launch,” Gangakhedkar said becoming emotional on the stand.
“Ms. Holmes said she didn’t have much of a choice?” asked Robert Leach, an assistant U.S. attorney.
“Yes,” she replied.
Despite signing a non-disclosure agreement, Gangakhedkar said she printed some documents and took them home when she quit because she was “worried about the launch, I was actually scared that if things do not go well I would be blamed.”
Gangakhedkar was granted immunity from criminal charges in exchange for her testimony.
I've always figured there were product development-type chemists at Theranos, but I hadn't identified any. Sounds like Ms. Gangakhedkar was one of them, and it wasn't a great environment to work.
Two of the largest US paint makers, Sherwin Williams and PPG Industries, say their third-quarter sales will be hit significantly by raw material shortages. Raw materials such as resins for coatings have been in short supply since freezing weather in Texas in February sidelined the chemical industry.
Producers have been slow to recover and now have to contend with additional events such as Hurricane Ida. PPG says its sales will be $225 million to $275 million lower than it had anticipated at the beginning of the quarter. The company says its sales of paint to the auto industry also have been hit by a shortage of computer chips that automakers need to build cars. Sherwin Williams says raw material shortages crimped sales by 3.5% in the second quarter. It expects third-quarter sales to be lower than expected by a “high-single-digit percentage.” Sherwin-Williams says the raw materials it can get are expensive and thus it has put surcharges on its products.
It's amazing how some chemical producers are being hit by both shortages from the raw material side as well as the customer side (i.e. all automotive suppliers.)
Well, here we are, at the end of the week. I hope you had a good one, and that you'll have a restful weekend. We'll see you on Monday.
*this piece isn't symbolic of anything, it's just a piece I heard recently that I found really arresting
Along with Andrea Amati and Andrea Guarneri, Antonio Stradivari dominated the so-called Golden Age of Violins (roughly 1660 to 1750), and the instruments they crafted remain the gold standard today in terms of acoustic quality. World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma has long favored a Stradivarius instrument, as does violinist Joshua Bell. But scientists have been arguing for years about precisely why these instruments have such superior sound. A recent paper published in the journal Angewandte Chemie confirms a theory dating back to 2006: the secret lies in the chemicals used to soak the wood, most notably borax, zinc, copper, alum, and lime water.
Good piece - if it was indeed the treatments, good luck reproducing that!
Common Organic Chemistry is resolving some technical difficulties, but has ported over the list to Google Drive for now. There are 31 new positions for September 11.
Don't forget to check out the Common Organic Chemistry company map, a very helpful resource for organic chemists looking for potential employers.
The 2022 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 195 research/teaching positions and 11 teaching positions.
Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.Don't forget to click on "load more" below the comment box for the full thread.
The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List has 18 positions. It is curated by Lilian Josephson (@lljosephson).
Want to talk? Go to this year's open thread.
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The Instrumentation Support Technician will be responsible for the validation of chemical structures of submitted samples by using mass spectrometry.
Required Qualifications (As evidenced by attached resume):
Bachelor’s Degree (foreign equivalent or higher degree) in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biomedical engineering or a related discipline. Two (2) years of work/research experience in the operation of a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) instrument.
Preferred Qualifications:
Master's degree in Analytical Chemistry. Experience with LC-MS instrument maintenance.
Full ad here. Best wishes to those interested.
The Academic Staff Jobs list has 39 positions.
This list is curated by Sarah Cady and @nmr_chemist. It targets:
Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.
Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.
...So how bad was the job market for chemistry professors? Since 2016, C&EN columnist Chemjobber and industrial chemist Andrew Spaeth have maintained a list of open tenure-track and teaching positions in chemistry in the US and Canada. They say the numbers tell a clear story: chemists looking to start their careers as professors were competing for far fewer opportunities in the 2020–21 hiring season than in years past.The academic hiring season in the US starts in earnest in September and wraps up the following June. Throughout that time, schools post positions that will be open for the following academic year. Chemjobber and Spaeth’s final tallies each June from 2017 to 2020 indicate that more than 550 academic chemistry jobs were posted each year. By June 2021, only 339 job openings had been posted—a roughly 40% decrease from years past.Job seekers who spoke with C&EN found that the 2020–21 hiring cycle was unusually drawn out, with offers delayed by months. Restrictions on travel and campus visitors meant that candidates had to interview using Zoom and had to rely on video tours to get a sense of their potential lab space. Job seekers, who were deciding where to spend those critical early years of their independent careers, had a tough time. And they weren’t alone. Employers, who were making significant investments in new hires, also say the process was difficult...
...The combination of a healthy drug industry, heavy venture capital investment in start-ups, and new targets for small-molecule drugs is spurring a hiring spree, allowing some young PhD chemists, particularly in medicinal and computational chemistry, to skip the traditional years of postdoctoral training and go quickly to work in the pharmaceutical industry. The boom is great for chemists looking to start their careers, but it is raising questions about the role of the postdoc in the training of chemists today.Hall says he was prompted to start a conversation on Twitter after hearing multiple accounts of principal investigators in academic labs losing postdocs to industry. “And not in a scenario where they have done a 2- or 3-year postdoc, but 4 to 6 months in. I’m 44. I did a very long postdoc. I have a lot of friends who did two postdocs. That was not uncommon at all. Obviously, the opportunities are there now in a way they haven’t been for a while.”Hall adds that it has become increasingly difficult to fill postdoc spots in his lab at NCATS. “I have chatted with a few people who applied for postdocs who basically said, ‘I’m not doing a postdoc. I have a job with pharma.’ ”
Article has lots of good anecdotes from people who have successfully found industry positions. Oh, and I stand by my normative position. Lots of great angles to ponder - read the whole thing.
Well, here we are at the weekend. Hope that you had a good week, and that you have a wonderful weekend. Going camping, so that should be... fun? See you on Monday.
From the inbox, this position:
The Organic Chemist will use scientific principles and expertise, and a broad range of advanced technologies and industrial tools for achieving company goals. This successful, self-motivated, creative, and results-oriented individual will lead in their area of expertise to utilize cutting-edge chemistry methods and techniques in the development of innovative food products and processes. The Organic Chemist will have a keen understanding of the field and extensive hands-on research experience with proven ability to think beyond standard methods, independently conduct research and reach conclusions, and clearly deliver results within a matrix organization.
RESPONSIBILITIES
QUALIFICATIONS
In addition to oil refineries being shut down the chemical industry has also had closures. ICIS has been tracking the situation and as of September 1st here is a list of sites that have been offline. In the chemical industry I suspect there to be more raw material shortages and force majeures hitting supply chains in the coming weeks. Hopefully the buyers further down the supply chain have enough inventory to get through the next few weeks. Get ready for higher prices in the short term.
That update was from August 31, and here's the update from ICIS:
HOUSTON (ICIS)--Over 75% of US Gulf oil production and natural gas production respectively remains offline as offshore producers continue to recover from the disruption in production caused by Hurricane Ida.
Currently, 76% of oil production and 77% of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico remains shut in, according to the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).
Worth noting that there's an acrylonitrile plant that's been shutdown and has declared force majeure. Will be interesting to see when it starts back up.
Common Organic Chemistry is resolving some technical difficulties, but has ported over the list to Google Drive for now. There are 19 new positions for September 3.
Don't forget to check out the Common Organic Chemistry company map, a very helpful resource for organic chemists looking for potential employers.
The former CEO and chief operating officer of the Taiwanese biotech firm Eden Biologics—which changed its name from JHL Biotech in February—have been convicted in the US of stealing trade secrets from Genentech. The executives, Racho Ivanov Jordanov and Rose Lin, join staffers Xanthe Lam and Allen Lam, who were convicted on related charges in July. According to the indictments, the four worked together starting in 2009 to steal manufacturing protocols and other proprietary information from Genentech about its drugs Avastin, Herceptin, Pulmozyme, and Rituxan. Xanthe Lam worked at Genentech from 1986 to 2017.
According to the plea agreement, Jordanov hired former Genentech employees to work at JHL Biotech, several of whom he learned surreptitiously brought, without authorization, confidential and proprietary documents with them from Genentech to JHL Biotech.
The company used only some of the stolen documents, but Jordanov tolerated this practice by the employees of JHL Biotech and made no effort to discourage its employees from using the documents or information they brought with them. The employees Jordanov hired provided the Genentech documents and information to JHL Biotech, which, at times, allowed the company to cheat, cut corners, solve problems, provide examples, avoid further experimentation, eliminate costs, lend scientific assurance, and otherwise help JHL Biotech start-up, develop, and operate its business secretly using the intellectual property and scientific know-how taken from Genentech.
Jordanov admitted that he suspected that some or all the stolen information was brought to JHL Biotech in violation of relevant Genentech non-disclosure agreements and employment contracts, but he made no effort to verify whether that was true.
I've thought about this stuff before. Makes you wonder if companies have thought about ways that their documents leave the company, and how to track them...
ROSCOE — Two weeks of pay for every year on the job up to 52 weeks was the severance package Chemtool employees were expecting after the company's Rockton plant was destroyed by fire.Taylor Vronch, a Chemtool foreman, called the severance package a "generous policy," that is before the company changed it.Vronch was among 25 Chemtool employees who gathered Sunday at Mary's Market in Roscoe to talk about a recent change to the severance packages they say they were assured they'd get.The package now states employees with five years or more will receive one weeks' pay per year on the job with a maximum payout of eight weeks.
Gee, two months severance for a surprise shutdown of a plant seems pretty darn crummy to me. (What is it about Berkshire Hathaway companies and pay? I feel like I hear a fair number of complaints about them, but I think that's confirmation bias on my part.)
The 2022 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 165 research/teaching positions and 6 teaching positions.
Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.Don't forget to click on "load more" below the comment box for the full thread.
The Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry invites applications for a full-time tenure stream appointment in the area of the application of data science to chemical and biochemical systems. The appointment will be at the rank of Associate Professor or Professor with an expected start date of July 1, 2022, or shortly thereafter.Applicants are expected to have a PhD in chemical, biological, environmental or materials engineering or in applied chemistry, biology, computer science, computer engineering or a related field at the time of appointment. Postdoctoral or industrial experience is an asset. The successful candidate will have a clearly demonstrated exceptional record of excellence in research and teaching, as well as innovation in research and teaching.We seek candidates with outstanding expertise in the development and application of Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) or quantum computing methodologies to chemical and biochemical systems and whose research and teaching complement and strengthen our existing strengths in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. Areas of application for the candidate’s research may include, but are not limited to, chemical, biochemical and materials processing, sustainable energy/manufacturing/materials, environmental science and engineering, chemical/biomolecular modelling, polymers, catalysis, reaction engineering, transport phenomena, advanced separations, regenerative medicine, protein engineering, genomics, bioinformatics, systems biology, forest products, self-driving laboratories, surface and interface engineering.All application materials, including reference letters must be received by January 10, 2022. Submission guidelines can be found at http://uoft.me/how-to-apply. If you have any questions about this position please contact chair.chemeng@utoronto.ca.To apply at the rank of Assistant Professor in AI in Chemical and Biochemical Systems:To apply at the rank of Associate/Full Professor in AI in Chemical and Biochemical Systems:
The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List has 17 positions. It is curated by Lilian Josephson (@lljosephson).
Want to talk? Go to this year's open thread.
The Academic Staff Jobs list has 39 positions.
This list is curated by Sarah Cady and @nmr_chemist. It targets:
Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.
Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.
Well, here we are at the weekend. I hope that you have a great one, and we'll see you on Tuesday, since Monday is Labor Day.
Whenever I got stuck on math homework while growing up, I would go looking for my mother. Often I would find her on the living-room couch unwinding after work, catching up on the news with both the local Cantonese news station blaring on the TV and The Economist open in her lap.“I don’t know how to do this,” I would complain, settling on the carpet by her feet.“Read me the question.”I would recite: “Sarah takes six hours to paint a fence, and John takes 12 hours to paint the same fence. How long will it take to paint a fence twice as long if they work together?”She wouldn’t even look at the page.“How many hours do you think it’ll take them?”“I don’t know, or I wouldn’t be asking you!”“Single digit? Tens of hours? Hundreds of hours?”“Mommm …”
I love Fermi problems, and making estimates. These days, I do it a fair bit for work, and I also do it a fair bit around chemical employment as well. How many professors do you think work on this problem? Maybe 1, maybe 10. How many working industrial medicinal chemists are there in the United States? I dunno, definitely 1000, definitely not 100,000, probably closer to 5,000. How many chemical plants are there in the United States? Well, that's probably a number less than 5000, but more than 100.
Readers, what are your favorite Fermi-type questions and how do you go about solving them?
Common Organic Chemistry is resolving some technical difficulties, but has ported over the list to Google Drive for now. There are 21 new positions for August 31 and 17 new positions for August 27.
Don't forget to check out the Common Organic Chemistry company map, a very helpful resource for organic chemists looking for potential employers.
Problems with the new chemistry building addition on the UW-Madison campus continue with part of the ventilation system collapsing earlier this month, closing two wings of the University Avenue building.A large duct on the ninth floor of the new tower collapsed Aug. 21, the university said in an announcement. The ducts that make up the ventilation system are key to exhausting chemical fumes.The damaged duct is part of the system that serves the Mathews and Daniels wings, which house an unspecified number of research labs. All staff has moved out while a damage assessment takes place.The chemistry department is working with leaders of each lab to move their research to a different location or transition to operate remotely for a while.University officials have also either moved online or identified alternative locations for the eight course sections scheduled to take place in the two wings this semester.The timeline to repair the system is unknown, according to UW-Madison.The closure of the two wings comes on the heels of the university announcing a delay in the new tower's opening. That's because fire safety tests performed over the summer found the elevator shafts in the addition did not pass pressurization tests. Elevator shaft pressurization reduces the spread of smoke during a fire, making improper pressure a “life-safety issue.”The $133 million construction project broke ground in September 2018.
Well, this sounds like a mess for the lawyers to handle. I imagine there will be a settlement sometime in 2027. Best wishes to the graduate students and postdocs most affected by this.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), fell 0.5% in August on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis following steadily easing gains in May, June and July. On a year-over-year (Y/Y) basis, the barometer rose 12.5% in August (3MMA).The unadjusted data show a 1.6% decline in August after flat readings in July and June. The diffusion index eased to 82% in August. The diffusion index marks the number of positive contributors relative to the total number of indicators monitored. The CAB reading for July was revised downward by 0.53 points and the reading for June was revised downward by 0.33 points. The August data are provisional and subject to revision."The latest CAB reading is consistent with expansion of commerce, trade and industry, but clearly growth has peaked, with slower growth ahead." said Kevin Swift, chief economist at ACC.The CAB has four main components, each consisting of a variety of indicators: 1) production; 2) equity prices; 3) product prices; and 4) inventories and other indicators.In August, production-related indicators were up slightly. Trends in construction-related resins and related performance chemistry improved. Resins and chemistry used in other durable goods increased. Plastic resins used in packaging and for consumer and institutional applications showed gains. Performance chemistry for industry was solid and exports grew. Equity prices declined amid geopolitical uncertainty and fears about the Delta variant. Product and input prices expanded.Inventory and other supply chain indicators were positive.
If the economy starts cooling off in general, it's possible the very hot chemistry job market might slow down, especially since the CAB sounds like it's been dialing back since May - here's hoping otherwise.
Best wishes to all of us.