C&EN releases 2024 ACS Salary Survey - median salary for ACS members are $120,000/year

Via C&EN, this news (article by Delger Erdenesanaa and Seamus Murphy): 

The median salary for US chemists and chemical engineers who are members of the American Chemical Society rose by 9% to $120,000 in 2024, compared with $110,000 in 2023, according to the latest salary survey conducted by ACS. The ACS survey collected responses from 3,097 members between April 14 and June 2, 2025, regarding 2024 salaries. Chemists who responded to the survey had a median salary of $115,000 in 2024 compared with $109,000 in 2023, while chemical engineers who responded had a median salary of $155,000 in 2024 compared with nearly $144,000 in 2023.

The increase in the median salary for chemists seen in survey results for 2024 compared with 2023 is in line with inflation and cost-of-living increases, according to a spokesperson with the ACS research department.

That isn't always the case. Adjusted for inflation, the median salaries of doctorate and bachelor’s degree holders were about 6% and 9% higher, respectively, in 2024 compared with 1985. The median salary of master’s degree holders was about 1.9% lower in 2024 compared with 1985, when adjusting for inflation.

Most respondents work in academia or industry, and most have a doctoral degree. The median salaries from this survey were higher than the median salaries of $84,150 for chemists and $121,860 for chemical engineers reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2024.

ACS publishes C&EN, but C&EN remains editorially independent of ACS. C&EN does not play a role in designing the survey questions or conducting the survey. C&EN requested specific data from the ACS salary survey team, who analyzed the raw data.

Of the respondents who disclosed their demographic details, men continue to receive higher salaries than women and nonbinary people. Asian and White respondents had higher salaries than people of other races. Averaged across the whole dataset, median salaries were highest in New England and on the West Coast.

This data is pretty straightforward, and I would encourage you all to read it (especially if you haven't seen this data set before.) It's pretty much the same as years before, but I need to look at it more thoroughly some more. Nevertheless, read the whole thing. 

The 2022 ACS Salary Survey: salaries up, but down against inflation

The 2022 ACS Salary Survey, by the numbers (5,411 ACS members responded): 

Academia: $84,150, up from $77,242 in 2021

Government: $116,196, up from $104,512 

Industry: $136,000, up from $104,512

Overall median: $105,000, up from $98,000

Unemployment among ACS members is at the lowest rate ever recorded: 

2022: 0.6%

2021: 1.8%

2020: 1.5%

Unemployment has been low for the last three surveys: 

Doctorate: 0.5% (2022), down from 1.4% for both 2021 and 2020

Master's: 0.7% (2022), down from 2.3% (2021) and 1.7% (2020)

Bachelor's: 1.0% (2022), down from 3.4% (2021) and 2.3% (2020)

With all the caveats around the ACS Salary Survey (the low response rate of 8%, and that ACS members are not representative of all chemists nationwide), this is good news. Here's hoping the 2023 numbers look just as good... 

The 2022 ACS Salary Survey is out

A longer post will come out, but for now, a quick link and the summary by Andrea Widener: 

Across all employment sectors, US chemists fared well in the third year of the pandemic, according to the American Chemical Society’s latest salary survey. Median salaries were up across the board, the survey shows. The survey was sent to 125,048 people affiliated with ACS and was open May 3–31, 2022. The response rate was 8.24%.

Unemployment also hit a record low, a likely response to booming demand for chemistry workers in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. But when salaries were adjusted for inflation, they remained largely flat since 1985, with an extra dip in 2022 likely due to recent high inflation rates.

The response rate is rather alarming, but the numbers look pretty decent. More to come...  

The median industrial member of the ACS made $130,000 in 2021

2021 ACS Salary Survey
credit: Chemical and Engineering News

 

From the ACS Salary Survey. Perhaps not a surprise that 2021 saw a reduction in government and academic salaries. If there's a rebound for the 2022 survey (although a lot of that may be inflation-related cost of living increases), we might be able to attribute this to the pandemic. 

The 2020 ACS Salary Survey is out

From this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News, the ACS Salary Survey results (article by Andrea Widener): 

Overall, American Chemical Society members have fared well economically through the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the society’s 2021 salary survey. Median annual salaries were down only slightly, according to the survey of 5,488 members, which was conducted from May 7 to June 23, 2021.

Members who work in industry were the one group that saw salaries rise. That increase could be explained, at least in part, by the booming biotech and pharmaceutical sectors. Salaries dropped for members who work in academia and government.

The unemployment rate for ACS members increased slightly, rising to 1.8% from 1.5% in 2020. That is still lower than unemployment had been for the previous 20 years; 2020 was the first time it had fallen below 2% since ACS began collecting data.

ACS publishes C&EN, but C&EN remains editorially independent of ACS. C&EN publishes the ACS salary survey because similar data on chemists’ salaries are not available from other sources. C&EN does not play a role in designing the survey questions, conducting the survey, or analyzing the results. C&EN requested specific data from the ACS salary survey team.

More analysis soon, but it's worth noting that there were definitely two economies in the United States during the pandemic, and industrial ACS members were a part of the one that did mostly better. Read the whole thing.  

The 2020 ACS Salary Survey is out

More analysis soon, but here's a portion of the cover article from Andrea Widener: 

Like many events in 2020, the American Chemical Society salary survey was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Normally conducted in the spring, the survey collected data in June and July of last year. The data shown here reflect the median annual salaries for 4,565 ACS members under age 70 who work as full-time employees in the US. (ACS publishes C&EN.)

The most notable change from the 2019 survey is the drop in unemployment rate. The salary survey shows an unemployment rate of 1.5% for ACS members, who were asked to report their status as of March 1, 2020. That’s down more than a point from the 2019 rate and is the lowest rate in the past 20 years. Unemployment in some regions dropped to below 1%.

Why the big drop? C&EN asked ACS its thoughts about the change and what might be causing it.

To start, there’s the date: March 1 was before most people would have felt the economic effects of COVID-19. “I would point to the rise in the economy and how our economy’s been doing in general prior to the pandemic,” says Eric Bruton, a chemist at Boeing and chair of the ACS Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs (CEPA), which oversees the salary survey. He points in particular to growth in several chemical-related industries during late 2019 and early 2020. “Overall, it’s a nice positive.”

Steven Meyers, who oversees the salary survey as ACS’s senior director of member programming, says the low employment rate “is emblematic of a trend that we’ve been seeing since the end of the last recession” in 2008–9, reflecting more than 10 years of economic growth.

The drop in unemployment in the ACS survey data isn’t reflected in the US unemployment rate in March for people with at least a bachelor’s degree, which was up slightly from 2.0% in March 2019 to 2.5% in March 2020, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. ACS often uses this number to compare trends for ACS members with the larger economy.

That looks like good news, even with the typical caveats around the Salary Survey. More to come... 

The 2016 ACS Salary Survey is out

Credit: C&EN

Also in this week's C&EN, the results of the 2016 ACS Salary Survey (summary by Andrea Widener):

• Overall ACS member unemployment is down from 3.1% in 2015 to 2.6% in 2016. 
• The median ACS member salary was $97,850, which is up slightly from $97,000 in $2015. 
• The median industrial ACS member salary was $116,000 in 2016, up from $112,996. 
• The median government ACS member salary was $107,615 in 2016, down slightly from $108,987.
• The median academic ACS member salary was $80,000 in 2016, up from $76,000.
• Overall, men ($105,000) make more than women ($81,000). 
• Chemical engineers make more than chemists ($123,000 versus $97,630). 
• The highest salaries and unemployment (3.6%) were in the Pacific (California, Oregon and Washington) area. 
• The median age of respondents was 49; 32% of them were female. 
• Interestingly, ~25% of the industrial respondents work in the pharma/fine chemicals/specialty chemical space. 
• There were ~twice as many female respondents who are adjuncts or secondary teachers. 

I refrain from making predictions routinely, but last year I was saying things like "2016 will be a better year than 2015", which I think is vaguely borne out by this data. I would not be making any such predictions about 2017 - the direction of GDP and political risk (thanks, Paul Hodges!) are simply too fuzzy for me. 

2015 ACS industrial member median salaries by work specialty

Credit: 2015 ChemCensus

Just a random perusing of the 2015 ChemCensus (the once-every-five-years salary survey of all domestic American Chemical Society members.) The response rate for the 2015 was ~33%, I estimate.

Seems to me to be reasonable that the pharmaceutical/medicinal chemist types show the highest pay.

How do the ACS employment surveys work?

Rick Ewing is the chair of ACS' Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs. The committee is in charge of the 3 core ACS employment surveys, the ACS Salary Survey, the ChemCensus and the New Graduate Survey. In this week's C&EN, he writes about the surveys and their methodology.

If you would like to understand the methodology behind these surveys, you should read Dr. Ewing's article; it is worth your time. He also responds to member concerns here:

...ACS members have also asked specifically about the decline in the response rates for each survey. Although the drop has been observed for some time, it has accelerated in recent years. For example, the Comprehensive Survey response rate of 36% in 2011 dropped to 28% in 2014. Though disconcerting, the decline in response rates is a general trend for surveys in all segments and not unique to ACS. The increased prevalence of surveys has resulted in ambivalence, which makes it tougher to convince individuals to take the time to reply...

While I understand that this is a problem of resources (we can't send people to ACS members' houses, knocking on their door and asking them to fill out the ChemCensus), I am a little bit concerned that CEPA apparently does not have a plan or an answer to the response rate problem.

If the response rate continues to fall, at what point does the data from the ChemCensus or the annual Salary Survey become less valuable? What others plans does CEPA have to raise the response rate? (I have gotten physical postcards, reminding me to fill out my Survey (and I do!)) What distinguishes respondents from those who do not respond? I am sure that CEPA is looking at these questions, and I look forward to the answers. 

The preliminary numbers from the ACS ChemCensus are out: unemployment of members is at 3.1%, slightly up from 2014

Credit: C&EN

Also in this week's C&EN, the preliminary data from the 2015 ChemCensus, which is a longer
version of the annual ACS salary survey. There were a number of articles: 

• The overview of the ChemCensus, which I'm going to cover below. 
• Two profiles of people (a professor and a recent Ph.D. grad) written by Andrea Widener 
• Job advice from various ACS members

The relevant numbers from the overview: 

• As you can see from the graph on the right, it's pretty clear that salaries for chemists and chemical engineers haven't risen much against inflation (graph in 1984 constant dollars.) 
• There were 23,843 respondents to the 2015 ChemCensus; I think that's a ~25-30% response rate, but I can't tell until the full report is released. 
• The unemployment rate for ACS members in 2015 was 3.1%, which is up from 2014's 2.9%. 
• "11% of members in 2015 accepted a job that paid less than their previous position to maintain employment." 
• The coastal regions have the highest median salaries, with $118,000 being the median salaries for both the Pacific (WA, OR, CA) region and the New England (MA, CT, NH, VT, ME) region. 
• "21% of members in 2015 said they do not have access to continuing education or technical training from their employer." 

I have to say that I am frankly a little surprised to see an overall increase in the unemployment numbers; I would have expected this year to be a little bit better, but we'll have to wait until the full report is released before we have a good sense.* 

The article by Andrea Widener that talked about the different perspectives of a current tenured professor (Prof. Shahriar Mobashery of the University of Notre Dame) and Jenny Zhang (recent Ph.D. grad from the University of Washington). There are some not so hopeful quotes in there: 

When Shahriar Mobashery got his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1985, chemistry seemed like a great career choice. “I thought the future was open,” the University of Notre Dame chemistry professor remembers. “In retrospect, that optimistic perspective was wonderful.” 

Back then, graduate schools had a hard time keeping students from dropping out for high-powered jobs in industry. Even foreign students in need of visas were in high demand. “Everybody got jobs in the 1980s,” he remembers. But the optimism that pervaded chemistry departments when Mobashery was in grad school has since dissipated. “Our outstanding students and postdocs still do just fine,” Mobashery says. But average students don’t fare nearly as well.

I agree with Professor Mobashery, in that we should be tracking how well the median student's income/unemployment is doing. Speaking of which, the quote from Dr. Zhang was eye-opening:

Not all of her fellow graduates have been able to find the job they’ve been searching for, Zhang says. They might be teaching part-time at the test-prep service Princeton Review or at a community college, doing computer programming, or carrying out a postdoc.  

That picture fits with what the ACS ChemCensus data suggest about employment opportunities in 1985 and 2015. “It’s a lot harder to get hired with a Ph.D. in chemistry today,” she says.

I wish I could disagree with her.

*Gotta say, I miss the graph-based format from the older coverage of the ACS Salary Survey; while the infographic approach is nice, I think the median reader of C&EN is used to tables of facts and figures. Maybe I'm wrong.

The full 2014 ACS Salary Survey is out

A brief note on the last day of a holiday weekend, courtesy of Sophie Rovner and this week's C&EN:

Unemployment is easing in the U.S. economy as a whole, and that trend is reflected in the chemical sector, according to the latest figures compiled by the American Chemical Society. “The unemployment rate of our domestic chemistry workforce is once again under 3.0%, as it was prior to the economic downturn of 2008–09,” notes Elizabeth C. McGaha, assistant director of ACS’s Research & Brand Strategy (RBS) department, which collects the data. 

“It’s good news that the drop in unemployment isn’t solely related to people taking part-time or postdoctoral work,” says Steven Meyers, assistant director of ACS’s Career & Professional Advancement department. Instead, the decrease in the fraction of ACS member chemists who are actively seeking work is “attributable to growth in full-time employment, which suggests that positions with at least 35 hours of work per week are absorbing those individuals transitioning into the workforce.” 

Unfortunately, the improving jobs situation hasn’t bolstered wages: “Salaries have still not begun to rebound to prerecession levels,” McGaha says. Even worse, “salaries for ACS member chemists in the U.S. have not kept up with inflation and therefore continue to lose ground in terms of buying power. While this is not unique to the chemical labor market, it is still a concern.”

A brief summary of the article's contents (which should be read in full):

Response rate: 23% (this has dropped significantly, with 35% for 2012 and 28% for 2013)
Full-time employed: 91.9% (highest percentage of full-time workers since 2008)
Postdoctoral percentage: 2.3% for 2014
Unemployment: 2.9%, lowest since 2008

An important caveat in the article about long-term unemployment of chemists:

...“it is certainly possible that small numbers of very long-term unemployed chemical scientists and engineers have given up on the job search or moved into non-chemistry-related fields” and therefore don’t show up in the numbers, Meyers says. “Those who have been out of work for a while and have few resources to receive further education or training will eventually take a nonideal position that at least keeps a paycheck coming in, even if it means being underemployed. Once that happens, it becomes more difficult to reenter the chemistry market. We know that some individuals are unfortunately in this regrettable situation; we just don’t have a way to measure how large their numbers are.”

If I were King of the ACS (and it is a good thing I am not), I would make measuring/finding this number a top priority.

The blue monster is winning: One of the interesting aspects of the ACS Salary Survey in recent years is its focus on how chemist wages losing ground against inflation. This year is no different.

Despite the discrepancy in the extent of unemployment, Ph.D.s are sharing the same fate as their colleagues in terms of wage increases. For all three degree levels, median wages this March were essentially the same as last year. The median salary for chemists with a doctorate was $102,000, for those with a master’s degree was $85,000, and for those with a bachelor’s degree was $72,000 (see salary trends table on page 71). 

But the story gets worse: These findings are stated in so-called current dollars, and therefore don’t account for changes in the cost of living. Calculating salaries in constant dollars—a practice that eliminates the effects of inflation—shows that chemists at all degree levels continue to lose ground with respect to the rising cost of living. 

Between 2013 and 2014, salaries adjusted for inflation fell 1.5% for each of the three degree levels. Looking at the data in the longer term highlights stark trends in chemists’ purchasing power. Compared with a decade ago, median salaries have shrunk 11.7% for Ph.D.s, 6.8% for chemists with M.S. degrees, and 7.9% for those with bachelor’s degrees, in terms of constant dollars.

This is a big problem, I would think. I would love to know which professions' median wages consistently beat inflation.

Salary.com versus the ACS Salary Survey

Chad Brick makes an interesting point in the comments:

The ACS salary survey is a poll of ACS members, who are not average chemists and who seem to have higher salaries than most. For example, new PhDs normally enter as something equivalent to Salary.com's "Chemist IV" at the companies I have worked at, starting at the bottom/middle of this distribution and working their way up. 

That's a full $10k less than what ACS is reporting as the typical salary for PhDs with 5-14 years since their BS, which is pretty much the same group of people. I think you are better off looking at salary.com's distributions for Chemist IV (younger PhD) and Chemist V (after your first major promotion, small group leader) than the ACS survey.

I've posted the two of them against each other above, so that you can see the difference.

I think Chad's comment is correct, in that we do not have an ACS-independent sense of "the average chemist." Also, because larger companies tend to support ACS and to pay employee dues, one suspects that more large company employees are represented than not, driving the salaries up. Finally, there's the methodological issue: ACS Salary Survey numbers are self-reported (you'd be likelier to report if you felt better about your numbers), while Salary.com's numbers are from HR professionals (a different problem: they might be tempted to fluff up their numbers a bit.)

Readers, your thoughts?

UPDATE: Chad has more thoughts on this on his blog. 

ACS Salary Survey: unemployment down slightly, median salaries up slightly

The full article by Sophie Rovner about the 2013 ACS Salary Survey is out, and there are a variety of interesting things to comment on. The short version is that unemployment is down slightly, from 2012's 4.2% of respondents to 3.5% in 2013. Median salaries for all chemists rose between 2012 and 2013, going up 2.2%. 

Inflation: I think the most interesting graph of the article is below:

It basically shows that, since 2003, salaries for all chemists (academic, industrial, governmental, at all degree levels) have failed to keep pace with inflation (as measured in 2003 constant dollars). While you could argue that this is due to the broader economy, it's not a pretty story, especially combined with the relatively high rates of unemployment.

Unemployment: We've covered the basic unemployment numbers from the ACS Salary Survey already. Here's a problematic comparison between the US population of college graduates and ACS members that I see in the web version of the article:

I'm not convinced it's an apples-to-apples comparison when you're comparing a professional society of over 60% Ph.D.s to a college-educated labor-force with less than 10% Ph.D.s (it's probably more like 5%, actually.) 

U6-like lowest since 2008: I've long titled the sum of the percentage of unemployed chemists, part-time chemists and postdocs in the ACS Salary Survey as the "U6-like number." In other words, it's a broader measure of unemployment in chemistry ("U6" refers to BLS' broadest measurement of unemployment in the U.S.) That number for the 2013 Salary Survey was 8.9%, which is lower than it has been since 2008, when it was 7.5%. That's nice to see, even it is quite high. 

Weird geography: I don't think Andre the Chemist or I could have predicted this one: 

Unemployment rates among ACS members also varied across the U.S. The percentage of out-of-work members who were looking for a job as of March 2013 was lowest in the East North Central region,which consists of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and highest in the Pacific region. New England, which at 6.9% had the highest unemployment rate last year, saw that number drop to 4.2% this year. The unemployment rate in the Pacific region eased from 6.5% to 4.9% during that same period.

The Upper Midwest with the lowest chemist unemployment? The Pacific region with the highest? Huh? 

The Eka-silicon caveat: Ol' E-s isn't going to like this one: 

The survey was sent to a random sample of 25,000 ACS members under the age of 70. The sample excluded student, emeritus, and retired members, as well as members living outside the U.S. The survey recipients returned 7,078 complete responses, for a response rate of 28%.

I'm pretty sure a 28% response rate is the lowest we've ever seen. 

The human side of chemist unemployment: David Harwell makes some sad points about long-term unemployment amongst chemists:

Still, Harwell cautions that the unemployment numbers might be artificially lowered by a small number of out-of-work chemists who have given up on searching for a job and thus are no longer counted in unemployment statistics. “We know that some people are dropping out,” he says. “We’re seeing people leaving chemistry.” 

The situation is toughest for what he terms the “very long-term unemployed,” who find it difficult to reenter the workforce for myriad reasons. “Their connections go cold; it’s hard for them to keep up their skills,” Harwell says. “They can go back to school, but that costs money, and if they have kids or a mortgage that is also eating through their savings, they just have to do something to survive.” 

And that doesn’t mean they are “making a targeted move from one sector of professional employment to another,” says Harwell. Instead, some of these chemists are now working at retail chains or in restaurants to make ends meet.

We've still got a ways to go. Best wishes to all of us.  

Early 2013 ACS Salary Survey: unemployment falling, salaries up for some

Data from this year's C&EN article and my post from 2011

I didn't get to do a recap of last week's release of the early results from the 2013 ACS Salary Survey, written up by Sophie L. Rovner:

Unemployment is down: The unemployment rate for members is down 0.7% between 2012 and 2013. Seems to me that the decrease in unemployment has been relatively broad-based, but it's nice to see the numbers for the B.S. members dropping significantly. Elizabeth McGaha, assistant director of ACS’s Research & Brand Strategy (RBS) department (the department that does this survey), notes that full-time employment is at 91.1%, which is the highest level since 2008. Good news, I'd think.

But: I was a little bit plesantly surprised to read the comment offered by David Harwell about this drop:

David Harwell, assistant director for career management at ACS, which publishes C&EN, cautions that the latest number might be affected by unemployed chemists who have given up on new job searches and thus are no longer counted in unemployment statistics.

And salaries:  The Bureau of Labor Statistics' CPI inflation index put inflation for 2012 at 1.7%. How did ACS member chemists do?

Salaries for U.S. chemists have edged up 2.2% in 2013 compared with 2012... the overall improvement in the median salary for chemists can be attributed entirely to a rise in pay for Ph.D.s, who saw a 1.4% boost over last year, the data show. Chemists who hold a bachelor’s degree actually suffered a 2.6% drop in median salary from 2012 to 2013.

Not so well, looks like.

(The Eka-silicon caveat: We'll also have to see what the response rate for the 2013 Salary Survey was -- I know I filled mine out.)

I think we're through the very worst of the Great Recession for chemistry, but I'd like to see ACS member unemployment drop well below the median unemployment for their equivalent degree levels before I'll say that we're recovered. That, and salary increases well above inflation. That'd be nice. (It's too soon to hope for signing bonuses, right? There's your Monday morning chuckle.)

Best wishes to all of us. 

Early 2013 ACS Salary Survey numbers out: overall member unemployment down, salaries mixed

From this week's C&EN and Sophie Rovner, something that could not wait until tomorrow morning, i.e. the early numbers from the 2013 ACS Salary Survey (which surveys members for the month of March 2013):

Employment and salary trends in the U.S. chemistry enterprise reflect the moderate recovery under way in the economy as a whole, according to survey results reported this week by the American Chemical Society. Salaries for U.S. chemists have edged up 2.2% in 2013 compared with 2012, while unemployment has continued to fall, from 4.7% in 2011, to 4.2% in 2012, and 3.5% in 2013. 

...David Harwell, assistant director for career management at ACS, which publishes C&EN, cautions that the latest number might be affected by unemployed chemists who have given up on new job searches and thus are no longer counted in unemployment statistics. [snip]

...The ACS data show that “the higher your education level, the better off you tend to be,” Harwell says. Some 4.6% of chemists who hold a B.S. degree are unemployed and looking for a job, while 3.0% of those with a Ph.D. are out of work and looking. Similarly, the overall improvement in the median salary for chemists can be attributed entirely to a rise in pay for Ph.D.s, who saw a 1.4% boost over last year, the data show. Chemists who hold a bachelor’s degree actually suffered a 2.6% drop in median salary from 2012 to 2013.

More tomorrow. Check the whole article out.  

"Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world..."

In my inbox, just now:

Madeleine Jacobs
Executive Director & Chief Executive Officer 

March 2013 

Dear Colleague: 

You have been randomly selected to participate in the 2013 annual ACS Comprehensive Employment Survey. This survey has tracked chemical employment and salaries for nearly four decades. 

This annual survey is conducted under the guidance of the ACS Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs (CEPA). The data are an integral part of understanding the changing employment patterns of chemical professionals. The data help populate both the ACS Salary Comparator as well as the ACS Employment Dashboard. Your participation is essential regardless of your current employment status. 

All data will be reported in the aggregate and your responses will be strictly confidential. Questionnaires have a survey control number that facilitates the data collection process, enabling us to remove your name from the mailing list when your questionnaire is returned. Your name will never be directly connected to the findings...

 Happy to help.

Chemists come out worse in 2012 unemployment comparison

The latest unemployment numbers for all graduate degree holders for 2012 has been released from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I've helpfully annotated the chart with comparisons to the (skepticism-inducing*) 2012 ACS member unemployment numbers and 2012  (skepticism-inducing**) BLS "chemist and material scientist" unemployment numbers.

As you can note, chemists come out worse in every single apples-to-apples comparison on all equivalent degree holders. (I'll do the salary numbers at some point soon.)

I've been trying to figure out for a while what "recovery" looks like -- so this is one of the key markers, I think. Recovery will be when our numbers are not consistently higher than "all" degree-holders.

Best wishes to all of us.

*Not all chemists are ACS members, the survey has a very low response rate, etc., etc. 
** The Current Population Survey only surveys 80,000 households -- what's the chances of a representative mix of chemists in there? 

2012 ACS Salary Survey: slightly lower unemployment, salaries not keeping pace w/inflation

Credit: 2012 ACS Salary Survey

The full data from the ACS Salary Survey is out, reflecting some of what we learned earlier. From an article in this week's C&EN from Sophie Rovner:

The important details:

Unemployment is down slightly: The unemployed number ticked down slightly from 4.6% to 4.2% (which is still the 2nd highest in the last twenty years.) The number of ACS members who are postdocs are still relatively high at 2.6%. Overall the "U6-like" number (part-time + postdoc + unemployed/seeking employment) is still in the double digits, which in my opinion, has been a signifier of the relatively difficult times that chemists have been facing over the last few years.

Salaries are not really keeping pace with inflation: From the article, an interesting set of facts about inflation-adjusted salaries:

The survey revealed that the median salary for chemists who were employed full-time—and who had not changed jobs over the prior year—fell 2.1% in 2012 to $92,000. That decline hit those with a Ph.D. hardest. This group saw a 2.0% drop in median salary to $100,000. Chemists with a master’s degree saw no change in salary from March 2011 to March 2012, while those with a bachelor’s degree experienced an increase of 1.9% to $74,200.... 

Credit: 2012 ACS Salary Survey

For all chemists who were employed full-time—whether they had changed jobs in the prior year or not—the survey showed that the median salary slipped 1.1% from 2011 to $92,000 in 2012. Chemists with a bachelor’s degree saw their median salary rise 2.6% to $73,900. Those with a master’s degree held steady at $85,000, and those with a Ph.D. saw a decline of 1.4% to $100,600. 

Compared with a decade ago, the median salary for bachelor’s chemists has risen an average of 2.5% per year. The median salary for chemists with a master’s degree has grown an average 2.2% per year and that for chemists with a Ph.D. has increased an average of 1.7% annually. These findings are in current dollars, and therefore don’t account for inflation. The sobering truth is that the average annual change in median salaries over the past 10 years in constant dollars—a calculation that eliminates the effect of inflation—is 0.2% for chemists with a bachelor’s degree, –0.1% for a master’s, and –0.6% for a doctorate. Overall, the median salary for all chemists has risen an average of 1.9% per year in current dollars, but shrunk 0.4% per year in constant dollars. (emphasis mine)

Interesting unemployment tidbits: From the article, a set of interesting questions that have not been typically publicized:

The survey turned up some other results that are both intriguing and disturbing. For instance, the percent of ACS member chemists who were unemployed at some point in 2011 was 8.2%, down slightly from 8.4% in 2010. This number has historically been about twice the March 1 unemployment number, ACS’s Edwards notes.  

This year’s survey also includes for the first time questions related to issues of underemployment and staffing. A little more than 12% of ACS member chemists reported that they had accepted a position or compensation package over the prior three years that was less than their previous position in order to maintain employment. 

Unemployment rates remained significantly higher for ACS chemists previously employed in industry (5.4%) than for those from academia (2.2%), according to Edwards. 

Nearly two-thirds of ACS chemists reported that their department or business unit was either significantly or somewhat understaffed. Just over 30% of respondents expected their department or company to increase staff over the next year, and 59% believed staffing levels would remain the same; the other 11% expected staffing reductions.

CJ is bothered by:

• So this is the data for the 2012 ACS Salary Survey, the one that showed a drop from the all time high of 4.6% member unemployment measured in March 2011. Where is the data for the 2011 ACS Salary Survey?
• We have been told that the ACS Salary Survey measures unemployment at a specific point during a year (March, typically.) In the article, it is noted that they have numbers for "unemployment during some point in the year" for as far back as 2010 -- why haven't these numbers been released contemporarily? 
• Where is the traditional "Employment Status of ACS Members" table (scroll down for the 2010 version), with its breakdown of member unemployment? What happened to it? 

More to come as I have time to mull over the numbers.

The Eka-Silicon caveat: I almost forgot! The ACS Salary Survey and the ChemCensus have both had relatively low response rates from members, which limits the extrapolatability of the data.   The response rate for the 2012 ACS Salary Survey was 35%, which is much lower than the 80% that professional survey types like to see. A discussion of this can be found here. At the same time, ACS unemployment numbers for their members more-or-less track the BLS survey data for chemists (see linked graph). 

The good old days

In this week's C&EN, editor-in-chief Rudy Baum is rearranging his files, and came across an old issue bemoaning the relatively poor job market for chemists in 2003:

The Nov. 24, 2003, issue included C&EN’s annual “Employment Outlook” feature. The first story in the package of stories was titled “Slump Continues for Chemists: Unemployment is at a record high, but opportunities exist for the well prepared.” Sound familiar? 

In her editorial in that issue, entitled “The More Things Change …,” then-editor-in-chief Madeleine Jacobs wrote: “The job market is as soft today as it was in the early 1970s,” when she began her career at C&EN. “Next year promises to be only marginally better than the past two years for graduating chemists.”

Rudy links to an article summarizing the March 2003 Salary Survey data:

These are difficult times for the U.S. economy, and chemical scientists have not been spared the fallout. Unemployment for chemists--as measured by unemployment of American Chemical Society members--is at a record high. C&EN Editor-at-Large Michael Heylin reports that the jobless rate of 3.5% that the most recent ACS Salary Survey reveals as of March 1 this year is up from 3.3% a year earlier. It also exceeds the earlier all-time high of 3.2% set in 1972, the first year of this annual survey. 

Industrial chemists have been hit particularly hard. For those in manufacturing, unemployment is at 4.9%. For those with nonmanufacturing firms, it is 4.8%. However, among academic chemists, unemployment remains negligible at 1.1%, and government-employed chemists are essentially fully employed with an unemployment level of 1.0%.

I hadn't really noticed that the previous all-time high was hit in 2003, which is a bit revealing. I seem to recall a bit of a slowdown back then. But what I think is most revealing is that it's apparent that the breakdowns between industry and academia used to be released:

I wonder why those breakdowns aren't released anymore. I need to check this out. 

ACS unemployment rate 2nd highest of last twenty years

The ACS Department of Research and Member Insights is out with the initial 2012 ACS Salary Survey data. In a C&EN story written by Rudy Baum, the results were reported yesterday:

The unemployment rate for American Chemical Society members in March 2012 fell to 4.2% from the record high of 4.6% recorded in March 2011, according to the society’s Membership & Scientific Advancement Division (M&SA). The March 2011 unemployment rate was the highest level recorded since the society began tracking employment in 1972. 

Although still high by historical standards, the 4.2% unemployment rate for ACS members is well below the 8.2% national unemployment rate in March reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That rate was down from 8.9% in March 2011. 

According to Elizabeth McGaha, manager of the Department of Research & Member Insights in M&SA, this year’s salary and employment survey showed that 90% of ACS members were employed full-time as of March 1, 2012; 3.2% were part-time, and 2.6% were in postdoc positions. More than 7,000 ACS members completed the survey, which was conducted with domestic regular members younger than 70. No students, emeritus, retired, or international members were included.

It ain't that great, I think: Among the different qualitative comments in Mr. Baum's article, here are some of the modifiers: "improve slightly", "still high" but "well below" the national unemployment rate, "less bleak". But there's this one from the mouseover text from the line graph accompanying the article:

That's right, folks. We're only at the 2nd highest reported unemployment rate of the last twenty years (remember, 3.9% in 2010 was "the highest percentage of chemists out of work in at least the past 20 years"), so we must be doing "significantly better."

Wrong comparison?: While we tend to compare the ACS unemployment rate against the national unemployment rate, shouldn't we be comparing the March 2012 ACS member unemployment rate against the national unemployment rate for college graduates? In March 2012, that number was 4.2%, which is the same as the ACS member unemployment rate. Food for thought.

There's one more factor to consider: BLS estimates of chemist unemployment have been mostly higher than the ACS number (BLS: 6.1% for 2011, as opposed to ACS' 4.6% for March 2011).

BLS reports that doctoral degree recipients had an unemployment rate of 2.5% in 2011. That all ACS numbers and BLS numbers have been higher than that indicates the difficulties that chemists face.

U6-like at 10.4%: I've long called the ACS Salary Survey's aggregation of members that aren't full-time employees the "U6-like" number, in reference to the broadest U6 measure of unemployment that the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses. For March 2012, that number is 10.4%, which appears to be the 2nd highest of the last ten years (11.9% in March 2010). It's nice to see that number trending down. 

Salaries a mixed bag: Ph.D. and M.S. salaries are down (1.9% and 1.1%, respectively), while B.S. salaries are up 2.3%.

A renewed focus: It's important to commend Ms. McGaha and her team for turning this data around so quickly in less than 4 (3?) months. Previous reports of the ACS Salary Survey data have taken much longer to surface (more than a year?). While we all have our issues with the ACS Salary Survey (see the Eka-Silicon caveat below), it's really great to see them become more responsive over time.

It's also nice to see Rudy Baum once again take the lead in writing the C&EN news stories on these issues. Call me naive, but having the C&EN editor-in-chief write these stories shows the growing importance of #chemjobs issues.

It's time for the Eka-Silicon caveat! The ACS Salary Survey and the ChemCensus have both had relatively low response rates from members, which limits the extrapolatability of the data. This year's response rate for the ACS Salary Survey is unknown. A discussion of this can be found in the comments here. At the same time, ACS unemployment numbers for their members more-or-less track the BLS survey data for chemists.