Results of the annual survey are reported in the April 7 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, a weekly news magazine published by ACS.
As of October 2002, inexperienced new bachelor's-level chemistry graduates who had received their degrees between July 2001 and June 2002 and who had taken full-time permanent jobs had a median salary of $31,000. This was $1,200 lower than for the year-earlier graduating class, the ACS survey reported. On the other hand, for new master's-level chemistry graduates the median was $45,000, up $2,000 for the year. For a new Ph.D., it was $67,500, down $2,000.
The mixed results are typical of the findings in the survey. Unemployment among new chemistry graduates is typically low. For example, the unemployment rate of new bachelor's-degree chemists rose from 4 percent in 2000 to 5.5 percent in 2001. The unemployment rate of new Ph.D. chemists rose from 3 percent in 2000 to 5 percent in 2002, compared to a 5.8 percent unemployment rate for all workers in the United States.
However, the full-time employment rate for those with bachelor's degrees has declined from 35 percent in 2000 to 26 percent in 2002; the drop is due to more new graduates finding part-time temporary work. The employment rate for master's graduates has gone from 56 percent in 2000 to 38 percent in 2002, with the drop due almost entirely to the increase of master's graduates going to graduate and professional school rather than to fulltime jobs, the study concludes.
Despite the drop in employment rates for chemists, the figures compare favorably with the overall U.S. unemployment figures since October 2000, according to the ACS survey.
Journal
Chemical & Engineering News