There are apparently some anecdotal signs of an incipient upturn in the long-depressed state of the job market for chemical professionals, especially chemists. But any such improvement does not show up in the latest American Chemical Society annual survey of the salaries and employment situation for newly graduated chemists and chemical engineers.
According to preliminary data from the survey - covering chemists and chemical engineers who graduated between July 1995 and June 1996 - median starting salaries for inexperienced chemistry graduates continue on the somewhat bumpy plateaus they have been on since 1991, with a generally downward bounce this year. Inexperienced is defined as having less than one year of technical work experience prior to graduation.
Chemical engineers with bachelor's and master's degrees continue to post some starting salary gains, but those gains are not big. And the median starting salary for inexperienced Ph.D. chemical engineering graduates is actually down a little this year from last.
The median base salary for all bachelor-level chemists responding to the survey who have nailed down full-time jobs is $26,000. For M.S. chemists, it is $36,500, and for Ph.D.s, $46,900. The corresponding salaries for chemical engineers are $42,000, $44,900, and $58,900, respectively.
Judging by responses to the survey received so far, the employment situation remains particularly challenging for chemists. The percentage of new B.S. chemists who were still seeking either fellowships or full-time employment at the time of the survey was 22%. This is a historically high level. Some of those in this 22% have either temporary or part-time jobs.
The employment situation is less depressed for chemists with advanced degrees but still not satisfactory - an unusually high proportion of Ph.D.s are in postdoctoral positions. As has been the case for some years, the job situation for chemical engineers remains considerably stronger than for chemists at all degree levels.
This annual ACS survey is conducted by the society's Department of Career Services under the general direction of the Committee on Economic & Professional Affairs. It is based on a questionnaire mailed to newly graduated chemists and chemical engineers who reside in the U.S. Names and addresses of the graduates are provided by chemistry departments approved by the ACS Committee on Professional Training and by chemical engineering departments approved by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Engineer's Council for Professional Development.
This year, questionnaires were mailed to 10,351 chemists and chemical engineers in August. This article is based on the first 3,015 responses - 2,283 chemists and 732 chemical engineers. When the survey is finally closed next month, after several mail reminders, responses are expected to total well over 5,000.
Complete results will be published by the Department of Career Services later this year as "Starting Salaries 1996." It will be available at $29.95 per copy from the American Chemical Society, Member Service Center, P.O. Box 9389, Minneapolis, Minn. 55440-9389; phone (800) 451-9190.
Comments and questions about the data should be directed to Mary W. Jordan at (202) 872-4433. She conducted the survey and is senior research analyst at ACS's Department of Career Services in Washington, D.C.
An annual survey of this type, dependent on voluntary responses, cannot yield precise data on the entire chemistry and chemical engineering graduating classes. The rate of response, expected to be more than 50% when all returns are in, is reasonably high. But the question of possible biases from differences in the situations of those who respond and those who don't cannot be fully resolved. For instance, are new graduates who have full-time positions more likely to respond than those who don't?
However, the survey provides at least a useful comparative indication of the salary and employment situation for those just starting out in the chemical and chemical engineering professions. In addition, as the survey is done essentially the same way each time, it identifies significant trends and year-to-year changes.
Analyzing and comparing salaries and salary trends for new chemistry and chemical engineering graduates is a tricky business. Care has to be taken to avoid comparing apples and oranges.
Medians are used to avoid the distortions that a few very high or very low salaries can bring to a mean. The median salary of the group is the salary that is equaled or exceeded by one-half of the group.
Both individual starting salaries and salary medians vary sharply with a number of factors. Salaries themselves are related to degree level, amount of work experience prior to graduation, nature of employer, and nature of work. And random year-to-year changes in the composition of the sample responding can drastically affect medians. This is especially true for relatively small subsets, such as inexperienced M.S. chemists who are male.
The median salary of all inexperienced bachelor's chemists with full-time jobs responding to the 1996 survey is $25,000. For bachelor-level chemical engineers, it is $42,000. At the advanced degree levels, the chemist-chemical engineer differential is smaller. It is $31,100 compared with $45,000 for master's, and $45,600 compared with $57,800 for Ph.D.s.
Some of these differences are due to the employment profiles of the two groups. About 90% of the chemical engineers' jobs, but only about 65% of the chemists' jobs, are in relatively higher paying industry. The impact of this difference is apparent in the median salaries for master's and doctoral chemists.
When the samples are narrowed to the salaries of inexperienced chemists and chemical engineers working for industry, the salary differences between the two groups become smaller. At the Ph.D. level, the median is $54,500 for chemists and $58,400 for chemical engineers, and it is $37,000 compared with $45,000 for master's. However, the big salary advantage for chemical engineers persists at the B.S. level - $26,000 for industrially employed chemistry graduates, $42,000 for chemical engineering graduates.
Variations in the profile of those responding to the ACS survey over the years have produced some sharp ups and downs in starting salary medians. But it is apparent that there has been little overall progress for chemists in the 1990s.
For instance, this year's median salary for inexperienced doctoral graduates of $45,600 is up only 4% from $44,000 in 1990. For M.S. chemists, there has been especially wide year-to-year variation during this five-year period. But the median for this year, $31,100, is also up only 4% from the 1990 level. Salaries for B.S. chemists have shown steadier, if modest, growth over the period - from $23,000 in 1990 to $25,000 this year. All of these comparisons indicate substantial constant-dollar reductions in the compensation for new chemical professionals.
The amount of technical work experience prior to graduation has a marked impact on the starting salaries for bachelor's and master's chemists. For B.S. chemists, the median is $25,000 for those with less than a year of such experience and $33,300 for those with more than three years. For M.S. chemists, the gap is even larger: $31,100 compared with $40,000. For doctoral chemists and for chemical engineers at all levels, the impact of prior work experience is smaller.
As has been the case for many years, gender is not a factor in starting salaries in the chemical profession. The tiny differences that show up in the salary medians are not statistically significant.
Grade-point average is a factor in the salaries of inexperienced bachelor-level chemical engineering graduates. But it apparently isn't for new B.S. chemists. Chemical engineers with a grade-point average of A enjoy a $43,000 median. This is $5,000 higher than for those with a grade-point average of C. For chemists with A, B, and C grades, the medians are $25,000, $25,000, and $25,800, respectively.
Another significant difference between chemistry and chemical engineering graduates is the size of the institutions they work for. Of full-time employed chemists responding this year, 45% found their jobs with institutions that employ fewer than 500 people and only 17% with large institutions that have 25,000 or more employees. For chemical engineers, it is almost the reverse, with 16% finding jobs in the fewer than 500 employees category and 35% with the 25,000 or more group.
New graduates are, by definition, in a transition phase in their careers. This makes it difficult to come up with one measurement that accurately summarizes the complex employment situation for an entire class of graduates. Chemistry and chemical engineering graduates can be starting in full-time jobs in industry or elsewhere; accepting full-time fellowships or postdoc positions; continuing their education full time without such support; working in temporary or part-time positions, often because of inability to find full-time jobs; or still looking for any employment at the time of the survey.
The questionnaire asked respondents to identify if they have full-time employment; have accepted an assistantship, fellowship, or postdoc position; have a part-time job; have a temporary job; or are unemployed. Answers to this question put 21% of B.S. chemists and 11% of B.S. chemical engineers into the unemployed category. For those with M.S. degrees, the corresponding numbers are 10% and 5%, and for Ph.D.s they are 7% and 4%.
These unemployment numbers are misleading, especially at the bachelor's level, because they include among the unemployed those who are continuing their education without the benefit of assistantships or fellowships - mostly in medicine, law, and other nonchemical fields.
Responses to this question indicate that 32% of B.S. chemistry graduates and 70% of B.S. chemical engineering graduates have found full-time employment, and that 28% and 11%, respectively, have fellowships. At the doctoral level, 45% of chemistry graduates and 73% of chemical engineering graduates have full-time jobs and 44% and 18%, respectively, are in postdoc positions.
Another measure of unemployment among brand-new graduates is the percentage of those seeking full-time jobs or fellowship/postdoc positions as a percentage of the total of those with such employment or positions plus those seeking them.
This year, this number is 22% for B.S. chemists, up from 19% last year, and a new high. In times of strong employment, this measure hovers near the 10% level. For B.S. chemical engineers, it is 16% this year. For M.S. and Ph.D. chemists, it is 17% and 10%, respectively. And for M.S. and Ph.D. chemical engineers, it is 5% and 9%, respectively.
Although this measure gives the most consistent comparative data on year-to-year trends in the employment status for new chemical professionals, it, too, does not accurately measure actual unemployment because it includes as unemployed many who at least have temporary or part-time positions.
Comparison of respondents to this year's survey and to the survey in 1986 bring out the magnitude of changes in the demographics of those entering the chemical profession.
For instance, this year 36% of new doctoral chemistry graduates are women. This percentage is up from 18% in 1986. The change reflects the growth in the number of bachelor-level chemistry graduates who are women that has been well under way for some years - from 39% of the class in 1986 to 48% this year.
In chemical engineering, the gender change is less marked over this period. The percentage of bachelor-level women graduates has grown from 27% to 38% this year, but at the doctoral level, it has dipped a notch, from 18% to 17%.
However, chemical engineering classes have changed more in terms of citizenship status and of racial and ethnic breakdown. This is partially due to a large number of students from Asia.
This year, 51% of doctoral chemical engineering graduates are not U.S. citizens, up from 32% in 1986. For new doctoral chemists, this growth has been from 15% to 35%.
Racial minority representation in chemistry and chemical engineering has grown at the bachelor's level. Again, the growth is substantially due to an influx of Asians, this time Asian-Americans.
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