The ACS Salary Survey finds plenty for chemists to celebrate, including lower unemployment.

Last year, ACS chemists with bachelor’s degrees reported mediocre salary gains vis-à-vis master’s-degree and Ph.D. chemists. This year’s ACS Comprehensive Salary and Economic Status Survey shows that the tables were turned (see Table 1). B.S. chemists reported a hefty average gain of 5.2%, while last year’s leaders, master’s degree holders, inched up only 1.6%. Ph.D. holders dropped off only slightly, from 4.1 to 3.9%, in salary gains. The “good year for B.S. chemists” phenomenon is highlighted furthe

Table 1. Median Salary Gains of all ACS Chemists, 1999–2000 Highest Degree 1999 2000 1998–1999 % Gain 1999–2000 % Gain B.S. $50,450 53,100 1.7 5.2 M.S. 61,000 62,000 5.7 1.6 Ph.D. 76,000 79,000 4.1 3.9

Table 2. Median Salary Gains of Industrial Chemists, 1999–2000 Highest Degree 1999 2000 1998-1999 % Gain 1999-2000 % Gain B.S. $51,275 $54,200 2.6 5.7 M.S. 65,000 65,500 6.6 0.8 Ph.D. 85,000 86,200 6.3 1.4

Table 3. Median Salary Gains, 1998–2000 1998 2000 % Gain All Chemists B.S. $54,200 2.6 7.1 M.S. 65,500 6.6 7.5 Ph.D. 76,000 79,000 7.8 Industrial Chemists B.S. 50,000 54,200 8.4 M.S. 61,000 65,500 7.4 Ph.D. 80,000 86,200 7.75

r in the results of the ACS Starting Salary Survey of the chemistry class of 1999.

The bottom line this year is a bit less rosy than 1999’s in relation to the general economy. The March 2000 Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 3.7% over March 1999, which means salary gains just barely outpaced inflation for Ph.D. chemists. Meanwhile, bachelor’s degree holders enjoyed an average 1.5% advantage over inflation, and M.S. chemists fell 2.1% behind the cost-of-living statistic. Last year’s CPI increase of only 1.7% was extraordinarily low; for a good example of the inflationary up-tick, one needs only to recall the prices of gasoline at the pump in March 1999 versus March of this year.

The factors and figures discussed thus far are for all fields in the chemical workforce. For industrial chemists in particular (Table 2), the situation was similar except that industrial Ph.D. holders’ salary gains fell off almost as much as those of M.S. chemists: from 6.3 to 1.4%, versus from 6.6 to 0.8% for the latter. Meanwhile, B.S. industrial chemists led all categories in average paycheck boosts with 5.7%, slightly better than the overall B.S. chemists’ average of 5.2%.

What a Difference a Year Makes
Although this year’s and last year’s salary surveys feature these contrasting results between advanced-degree and bachelor’s-degree chemists, it is important to remember that statistics tend to even out over the longer term. One needs only to combine the two years’ results into a single March 1998–March 2000 percentage gain (Table 3) to see a much smoother picture. Over the two-year span, both groups’ (all chemists and industrial chemists) salaries show gains within the range of a single percentage point—from 7.1 to 7.8% and from 7.4 to 8.4%, respectively. Moreover, advanced-degree chemists in both groups have virtually even salary increases, while B.S. industrial chemists still outpace the larger group of all B.S. chemists.

Shrinking Unemployment
As might be expected in the high-powered U.S. economy, unemployment for all chemists went down during the past year. After leveling off at 2.3% in March 1999, the rate dropped to 2.0% in March 2000 (see Figure 1) And again predictably, that hot commodity, B.S. chemists, led the way with a drop from last year’s 2.6% to match the overall unemployment rate of 2.0%.

Industrial chemists paralleled the overall decrease in unemployment, going from 2.6 to 2.3% this year. Academic chemists stayed at the very low rate of 1.3%, while government chemists hit the nearly “full employment” status of 0.8%. (A level below 1% had not been seen since 1980, when industrial chemists enjoyed another such moment in the near-full sunshine.)

The Pharm Story: Young, Not Restless You’re young, you’re well employed, and you’re in a good mood. These are just some of the things that you’ll learn about yourself in our analysis of the pharmaceutical chemists in the ChemCensus 2000 Salary Survey in the October issue of Modern Drug Discovery. (The article will be posted on the ACS Publications Website, http://pubs.acs.org.) At the ripe old average age of 40, whether male or female, you’ve hit your stride with a good job that pays a fair wage, little chance of unemployment, and plenty of opportunity for advancement. Wage parity is pretty strong in the younger crowd, although there’s still a bit of a lag in the older set. If there has to be a downside to things, it’s that you should have listened to your mother and become a doctor—a Ph.D., that is—because your M.S. degree is doing you little good over your B.S. colleagues. All in all though, the future is looking pretty rosy.

Among different employer types, two of the truly basic industries—food and petroleum—showed the most improvement over last year’s rate of joblessness. Food chemists went from 4.5% unemployment to only 1.8%, while petroleum chemists were job-hunting at a more moderate rate of 3.6% versus 1999’s chart-topping 4.9%. There’s still room for improvement, but maybe 2000’s higher gas prices will help oil companies reverse their 1990s cutbacks.

On the gender front, there was good news for female chemists in general, as their jobless rate dropped dramatically from 3.0% a year ago to 1.9% this year. Since the men of chemistry only edged down from 2.5 to 2.4% this year, it is the first time in recent memory that the unemployment rate has been lower among women than men in the chemical industry.

Minority chemists, on the other hand, lost the slight edge they gained last year with a 2.2% jobless rate versus nonminorities’ 2.7% at the time. This year, minority unemployment inched up a bit to 2.4%, while nonminority chemists achieved the lower rate of 2.2%.

The Median’s Value The salary figures used in this article are all median values, or 50th percentiles of their particular categories. The median is a better descriptive measure for comparing salaries among job types or over time than is the mean, or average, because the percentile is not influenced by extreme salary figures at either end of the total range. On the other hand, the median does not address how individual chemists’ salaries or raises compare year-to-year with those of colleagues.

As was noted last year, the worst discrepancies in joblessness for industrial chemists have been between age groups, and the situation has been further exacerbated this year. While chemists under 30 achieved the new low of 0.5% unemployment versus 1999’s already marvelous rate of 1.3%, and those in their 30s likewise plunged from 1.8 to 1.0% joblessness, the middle-aged chemists were slightly worse off. Unemployment rose from 2.2 to 2.3% for the 40s age group and from 4.0 to 4.2% for the 50s group. At the same time, chemists aged 60 to 69 reported only a 3.6% job-seeking rate versus last year’s abominable 6.4%, but the unknown factor in this group is how many actually found full-time jobs rather than consulting, retiring, or simply giving up looking. To the statisticians, a job found is the same as a job no longer sought: Both remove the former seeker from the officially defined category of persons not on someone’s payroll and trying to get hired. Since last year’s report, the ACS Department of Career Services has analyzed these age factors in depth and published the special report, Lifetimes in Chemistry: A Report on the “Mature Career Chemist” Study of Members Ages 50 through 69.

Industry Pay Still Leads
When industrial chemists’ median pay levels are compared to those of workers in other sectors of the chemical enterprise, industry pay leads all categories for all educational levels Figure 3. Last year, government-employed B.S. chemists edged their industrial counterparts, $53,242 to $51,275; but the chart-topping 5.7% rise for industrial bachelor’s chemists was paralleled in the government sector by a paltry 1% pay gain. Evidently, it is not salaries alone that keep the jobless rate so low for local, state, and federal government chemists.

The Five-Year Census The statistical data used for this article were derived from ChemCensus 2000, the March 2000 Comprehensive Salary and Employment Status Survey of the entire ACS population of active, regular members (excluding the categories of student, retired, and emeritus) under age 70 and living in the United States. Out of that 94,100 total, 47,831 usable replies were received for a response rate of 51%. The “full census” survey, conducted by the ACS Department of Career Services under the guidance of the Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs, is performed once every five years, with random sampling of approximately a quarter of the eligible members done in intervening years. This year, eligible members were also offered the option of completing the survey on the ACS Web site; about 7500 members chose this option. Senior workforce analyst Mary W. Jordan of the Department of Career Services assisted the authors with selection and analysis of the survey data for this article, but any errors of interpretation are solely the responsibility of the authors.

Within the industrial chemistry community, pay differs significantly according to the type of work performed (Figure 4). As in the past, the top job categories at all degree levels were R&D management, general management, and marketing/sales, in that order. The one exception to that order was at the Ph.D. level, where general managers slightly outearned R&D managers this year, $110,220 to $108,900. Identically with last year, the three lowest-paying work categories for B.S. chemists were analytical services, production/quality control (QC), and basic research; for Ph.D. chemists, the lowest pay was in production/QC, analytical services, and applied research, in that order. Due to a substantial jump in the median production/QC salary for M.S. chemists ($68,192 vs. last year’s $61,500), the three worst-paying categories among M.S.’s changed to analytical services, basic research, and applied research, in that order.

Once again, among newly minted Ph.D. chemists, female graduates achieved salary parity with their male counterparts—in fact, even a pocket-change superiority, $69,090 to $69,000. Another point of near-equality occurs at 2 to 4 years after receiving a B.S. degree, when the median for men is $38,600 and for women $38,374—a mere 0.6% difference.

More detailed survey data and analysis, including information on ACS members employed in academia, will be published this fall in the report Salaries 2000. The report will be available under “salaries” in the “Build Your Career” category on the Web site (http://www.acs.org), and the printed copy will be available for $150 from the Office of Society Services, 1155 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20036. In addition, ChemCensus 2000 will be the basis for four special reports, plus an all-day symposium, planned for release at the spring 2000 meeting in San Diego. These reports will be ChemCensus 2000, Industrial Chemists 2000, Academic Chemists 2000, and Women Chemists 2000. The reports will offer in-depth analysis of the ChemCensus data and will also look at historical data from a half-century of ACS employment surveys.

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Randall Frey is an associate editor and Randall Willis is an assistant editor of Today’s Chemist at Work. Comments and questions for the author may be addressed to the Editorial Office by e-mail at tcaw@acs.org, by fax at 202-776-8166 or by post at 1155 16th Street, NW; Washington, DC 20036.