I thought I would post this to allow you all some insight into what we see the Pharmacy Staffing market doing amid all the changes in the economy. First, our business is just like everyones' and does fluctuate - which can be normal (we tend to be busier at the end of the year than during the summer, i.e. cold/flu season). But, overall we have not seen much difference except in certain segments.
Retail: has been the most impacted so far. There are less shifts available as the client companies have been working aggressively to fill their own openings. This impacts us because if there are less open positions then there are less shifts available for PRN pharmacists to fill. We've even seen those companies' (and our competitors') own PRN pharmacists call us for other options - so this is not just affecting the staffing company floaters only, it even affects their internal floaters.
Direct Hire/Perm: this remains relatively unchanged and consistent. It's important to remember: no one has solved the Pharmacist shortage, companies and facilities have just built up their float/pools enough to give them some cushion when recruiting for positions. Especially affected are the rural hospitals who, in many cases, still have positions open from last year. We predict this to continue into 2009.
Travel/Contract: this is one area that we are slowly seeing starting to pick up. These are positions with mostly rural facilities that are looking for consistent coverage by one person or larger facilities who are tired of trying to schedule their new "34.5" PRN pharmacists. (It can be more time consuming than they thought to train and schedule all these people over the course of 3 months at a time). For this, we are recruiting people with a diverse background, who are flexible on traveling and being away for up to 13 weeks at a time, and able to positively deal with different situations.
Overall, our business is no different than most others. We are continuing to monitor how things react that may positively or negatively affect pharmacy staffing. We are optimistic on what we see so far though and how our team is doing everything we can to fill our clients needs.
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