C&EN Washington

The past 12 months have been an unusually active time for the surveying of chemists and chemical engineers for information about their salaries and job status.

In addition to the American Chemical Society's two annual surveys--of its membership (C&EN, July 27, page 17) and of new chemistry and chemical engineering graduates (C&EN, March 9, page 45)--there has been the first full-blown version of a multisociety survey that compares the starting salaries of new doctoral graduates in 14 disciplines, including chemistry and chemical engineering (C&EN, Aug. 17, page 41). This has also been the year for the biennial American Institute of Chemical Engineers' (AIChE) membership survey.

The highlights from these surveys indicate the following:

Salaries of individual chemists and chemical engineers are growing at a median rate of between 4 and 5% per year--more than twice the rate of inflation.

Starting salaries for new chemistry graduates at all degree levels have moved up quite sharply after a long period of little or no growth.

Starting salaries for chemistry and chemical engineering doctoral graduates fall in the midrange when compared with the salaries of new Ph.D.s in other disciplines.

Table: Ph.D. starting salaries vary widely with discipline, employer

The job market for chemistry and chemical engineering graduates seeking their first job has improved somewhat, with more higher paying jobs for chemists in industry.

The unemployment rate for ACS members went up slightly despite a strong economy and the lowest overall jobless rate in the U.S. in a generation. The job status of chemists remains better than it was two and three years ago, when it was quite bad, but it is still far from being as healthy as it has been during good times in the past.

The big advantage that chemists once held over the total U.S. workforce in terms of lower rates of unemployment has eroded substantially.

Table: Median salary of ACS survey respondents is $65,000

The bare-bones data from the ACS membership survey put the median salary of chemists with full-time jobs who responded at $65,000. For those with a bachelor's degree, it is $49,600. For a master's, it is $57,700, and for a Ph.D., $73,300. For those working in industry, the median is $69,500; for those with government jobs, $64,100; and for those in academia, $54,000. These are base salaries as of March 1. They exclude bonuses, consulting fees, or other additional professional income.

Compared with data from the year-earlier survey, these medians show a wide range of increases. The overall median of $65,000 is up 3.2%, while the $49,600 median for those with a bachelor's degree is up only 0.4%. The gains for master's and Ph.D. chemists are 2.7% and 3.2%. The increase for those in both industry and government is 3.7%, whereas this year's $54,000 median for those in academia indicates zero growth.

Table: Salary gains for individual chemists biggest in industry

These variations are due to the problems of trying to measure relatively small year-to-year changes by comparing medians from surveys taken one year apart and using different samples of individual chemists.

A firmer grip on salary growth for individual chemists comes from response to the survey question that asks for salaries as of March 1 for the current year and March 1 for the previous year. These data are more consistent because they come from the same set of chemists. On this basis, the salary increase for individual chemists this year was 4.7%--close to the 4.5% increases for each of the two previous years.

This year, the gain was 5.0% for those in industry and 4.0% for chemists in both government and academia. It was 5.0% for bachelor's degree holders. For those with a master's degree, it was 4.7%, and for Ph.D.s, 4.5%. Following an established pattern, the rates of increase decline with age--from 7.7% for those aged 20 to 29 to 3.3% for those in their 60s.

All these data are gleaned from a total of 9,500 responses to a questionnaire sent to a random sample of 20,000 ACS members who reside in the U.S., are less than 70 years old, and are not classified by the society as emeritus, retired, or students. The response rate of 48% was low by ACS standards.

Table: Top 10% of Ph.D. industrial chemists reach $100,000 salary about 20 years after earning B.S. degree

Of those who replied, 8,750 were chemists, 450 chemical engineers, and 300 had their specialty in other fields. Of the chemists, about 300 were either retired or otherwise not in the workforce.

The employment data from this year's survey indicate that 2.3% of ACS members in the workforce are unemployed but looking for employment. This is higher than the 2.0% unemployed last year. This increase was unexpected in light of the generally strong economy earlier this year and the very low overall unemployment rate in the U.S.

Over the years, the rate of joblessness among those responding to the ACS membership survey has ranged from a high of 3.0%--during the depressed early 1970s and again in 1996--to a low of 1.0% during relatively good times for the chemical community--most recently in 1988 and 1989.

This has always raised the issue of why, even during clearly difficult times for chemists, only a still modest 3% of them are unemployed. Part of the answer probably lies in the relatively lower response rate of those without jobs. However, the 1 to 3% range for unemployment as measured by the survey--even if low in absolute terms--could possibly still be a credible indicator that three times as many chemists are unemployed in bad times as in good.

Of the AIChE members responding to the institute's survey this year, 2% reported they were unemployed. However, the report on the survey points out that the institute's member records indicate that 4% of members are unemployed. AIChE's previous survey, published in 1996, reported a similar dis crepancy--2.5% of survey respondents unemployed, compared with 5.3% according to member records.

If a correction factor of something over two is applied to the unemployment data from the ACS membership survey, the3% jobless rate indicated by the survey during difficult times for chemists would translate into a more credible--if far more uncomfortable--6% or 7% rate.

This past March, the unemployment rate for the total civilian labor force of 4.5% came when the ACS survey jobless rate for chemists of 2.3% was well into the upper half of its historic range. Ten years ago, the unemployment rate among chemists as measured by the ACS survey (1.0%) was one-fifth the rate for the civilian workforce (5.0%). Today it is up to one-half.

The chemical engineering survey indicates that the median base salary ofrespondents during calendar year 1997 was $72,000. This compares with an overall median of $68,200 in 1995. It is a 5.6% increase, slightly higher than the 5.3% increase in the Consumer Price Index.

Table: Experienced chemical engineers at all degrees and of both genders show strong salary performance

For those with a bachelor's degree, the median for this year was $63,000. For master's degree holders, it was $75,000; for MBAs, $81,200; and for Ph.D.s, $80,000.

Table: Top 10% of chemical engineers surpass $90,000 salary level after about 10 years of work experience

These medians are all considerably higher than for chemists who responded to the ACS membership survey this year. However, since about 92% of AIChE's respondents work for industry, a better comparison is with the salaries of industrially employed chemists. About 62% of ACS respondents work for industry, while 26% are in lower paying academia.

On this basis, the difference remains large at the bachelor's level--medians of $50,000 for industrial chemists and $63,000 for industrial chemical engineers. For those with master's degrees, the difference becomes $61,000 versus $75,000. At the doctoral level, the difference disappears, with medians of $80,000 for both industrial chemists and chemical engineers.

However, chemical engineers, with median age about 39, are considerably younger than the chemists' median age of 44. Because the salaries of both chemists and chemical engineers are strongly correlated to years of experience, this age difference is an important factor when comparing the salaries of chemists and chemical engineers as individuals.

Table: Employment profiles for new chemists and chemical engineers are very different

The median year-to-year annual salary increase for individual respondents to the AIChE survey was 4.5%. This was essentially the same as the 4.7% for those responding to the ACS survey.

The AIChE survey was conducted in the early months of this year with a mailing to a random sample of 10,500 members. By the cut-off date, 3,275 had responded for a response rate of 31%. The survey's salary data are based on information provided by 2,871 full-time salaried employees.

The employment data in the AIChE survey indicate that 92.6% of respondents were full-time salaried employees. Another 3.2% were full-time self-employed, while 2.1% had part-time jobs and 2.1% were unemployed but seeking employment. This compares with the breakdown of respondents to the ACS survey of 92.9% employed full time, 2.5% employed part time, 2.3% on postdocs or fellowships, and 2.3% unemployed but looking for a job.

The ACS starting salary survey covers chemists and chemical engineers who graduated between July 1996 and June 1997. It is based on a questionnaire sent to them by ACS in October 1997. For chemists, addresses were provided by academic departments approved by the ACS Committee on Professional Training. For chemical engineers, addresses were provided by AIChE and the Engineer's Council for Professional Development. More than 17,000 questionnaires were sent and about 7,400 were returned, including 5,400 from chemists.

Table: Gender not a factor in starting salaries for new chemical professionals in industry

The most striking result this year was the very large year-to-year boosts in the salaries of chemists. For instance, the $54,000 median salary for inexperienced Ph.D. chemists with full-time jobs was 20% higher than the $45,000 median from the year-earlier survey. The gain for inexperienced master's degree chemists was 10%, to $37,500; and for inexperienced bachelor's degree chemists the gain was 12%, to $28,000. Inexperienced is defined as having less than one year's experience.

Table: Chemical engineering graduates earn significantly more than chemists at all degree levels

Some of these gains were due to a change in the mix in the type of jobs obtained. In the latest survey, 67% of the doctoral graduates obtained higher paying industry jobs. A year earlier, only 57% had done so. This year, those taking industrial positions had a median salary of $57,800, while those entering academia had a median of $35,000.

Whatever its source, the big starting salary gain this year was particularly welcome for doctoral chemists. Their 1996 median starting salary of $45,000 had been only marginally higher than the $44,000 median in 1990.

The year-to-year increases in the starting salaries of chemical engineers were relatively modest this year--1% for bachelor's, 4% for master's, and 5% for Ph.D.s. However, in absolute terms chemical en gineers retained their salary edge over chemists. The median of $43,000 for all bachelor's degree chemical engineers responding is 48% higher than the $29,000 median for all bachelor's degree chemists. This differential drops to 27% at the master's level--$48,500 versus $38,000. It is smallest, 11%, for doctorates--$60,900 versus $55,000. The median of $57,800 for doctoral chemists with jobs in industry was within 5% of the chemical engineers' median of $60,000.

According to CPST, the goal of the project--three years in the making--is "to gather from many disciplines timely, unambiguous, and strictly comparable career-related data on new doctoral graduates that are useful to an intended guidance of students, faculty advisers, and policymakers."

The societies involved sent questionnaires to a total of 15,000 new doctoral graduates. The response rate was 49%. All the questionnaires carried the same set of core questions. Each society could add questions of its own.

The median salary of close to $58,000 for chemistry doctoral graduates entering industry ranked eighth among the 13 disciplines reporting in the category. Chemical engineers ranked fifth. The highs were $73,500 for economists and $72,500 for computer scientists. The lows were $38,900 for political scientists and $44,300 for microbiologists.

Chemistry graduates entering academia with an 11- to 12-month contract had a median salary of $34,000. This put them 11th out of 14 disciplines. Chemical engineers topped this ranking at $64,000.

Data from this survey highlight the differing career patterns among the disciplines. For instance, roughly equal numbers of new chemistry doctoral graduates took full-time jobs (41%) as took up postdocs (52%). For chemical engineers this breakdown was 73% taking full-time jobs, and 23% accepting postdocs. At one extreme on this scale are microbiologists--23% taking full-time jobs and 73% taking postdocs. At the other extreme are computer scientists--89% taking full-time jobs and only 8% taking postdocs.

Table: For more information

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