Market shortages serving both sides
It’s no secret that Australia has a shortage of skilled labour across a range of professions, particularly across a range of practices within professional healthcare. So, if you’re a pharmacist and have been dreaming of leaving your country’s exploitative practices in retail community pharmacy and getting away from endless red tape as a government hospital employee, then it’s time you considered Australia’s temperate climes.
There’s no better time than the present to make your move, as Australia’s job market continues to target professionals from abroad. In 2013 alone, the country has 128 550 places for skilled migrants.
According to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Brendan O’ Connor, targeting skilled migrants allows Australia to grow its economy while it addresses skills gaps and bottlenecks.
Just recently, pharmacists were added to the country’s skilled shortages list.
Like everyone who’s devoted years to studying or working, you want your degree to work for you now. You want your passion for the chemical dispensing side of healthcare to pay off.
The upside of community retail pharmacy
If you love chemistry and the business aspects of retail fascinate you, then retail pharmacy could be the right career choice for you; particularly as so many pharmacists are employed by big retail chain group pharmacies, these days.
One of the advantages of pursuing this side of the pharmaceutical industry is that you can hire yourself out as locum, which will enable you to fully explore Australia and satisfy that travel bug. Practising your profession in this manner means that you will be able to visit Australia’s attractions, both big and small, and enjoy exploring them to the hilt in your time off.
The downside of retail pharmacy
Many pharmacists with previous experience in the retail industry, especially with regard to how pharmacy chains operate, wonder how they suddenly ended up as sales people. Welcome to the new era of being a pharmacist!
You can expect to be pressurized by your employer to make that extra buck no matter what the cost to the customer. This tactic could take many forms. In some particularly unfortunate cases, you could even be asked to use your free time to go out and find people who ‘need’ flu shots – without any extra compensation!
Of course, you’ll have to work long hours, but be warned that your shift may not even offer enough time for you to eat your lunch.
Beyond retail pharmacy
While we focused on retail pharmacy here, your job choices can extend into the industrial side of things (research, analysis, and marketing of pharmaceutical drugs), and the academic side of things (teaching pharmacy to students). You could even become an accredited pharmacist, which would allow you to work with the aged in care facilities.
You can approach all kinds of businesses for job possibilities, including: insurance companies, legal offices, accounting practices, research companies, the defence force, and academic institutions. All of whom employ pharmacists for a wide range of reasons.
The practice of pharmacy may have been standardized globally, but there’s nothing predictable about the novelty of exploring a new country.
Featured images:
License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=pharmacist&ex=1#ai:MP900400871|
Shellee-Kim Gold writes for Skilled Migrant Jobs, which helps immigrants find employers offering Australian jobs in a variety of different professions and industries.