Beyond the Shortage: Future of the Pharmacy Workforce
The healthcare workforce landscape is evolving rapidly, shaped by demographic shifts, technological advancements, and post-pandemic realities. In 2025, health systems must make meaningful steps to address workforce challenges.
Shifting Demographics and Workforce Composition
The U.S. labor market is undergoing significant demographic changes, with 10,000 baby boomers retiring daily. Gen Z will soon be the largest segment of the workforce and values purpose-driven work, flexibility, career growth, and diversity. They seek organizations committed to social responsibility, work-life balance, and technological innovation. Gen Alpha is anticipated to prioritize personalized career experiences, continuous learning, and environmental and social responsibility. To address Gen Z workforce shortages, organizations are leveraging digital platforms for recruitment, emphasize purpose-driven branding, create flexible work models, offer continuous learning opportunities, develop clear career progression paths, foster inclusive cultures, prioritize diversity, and provide mental health and wellness support.
Pharmacy Workforce Shortage
Healthcare leaders often cite workforce shortages as their most pressing concern. The U.S. faces a projected shortage of 3.2 million lower-wage healthcare workers, including pharmacy technicians, nursing assistants, and home health aides, by 2028. Pharmacy technicians are particularly affected, with 88% of pharmacies and 74% of hospitals reporting shortages, contributing to increased workloads and high turnover rates. Meanwhile, critical shortages of pharmacists have emerged, with 60% of hospitals reporting gaps in frontline pharmacist roles and 57% struggling to fill managerial positions.
Demand
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment of pharmacists is projected to grow by 5% and pharmacy technicians by 6% from 2023 to 2033. An analysis of BLS projections for 2003-2023 compared to actual employment found projections slightly overestimated pharmacist demand and significantly underestimated pharmacy technician demand. Endeavoring to predict demand in the pharmacy profession is challenging given the unknowns of the pharmaceutical pipeline, evolving roles and responsibilities, and advances in technology and automation.
Supply
In 2023, the number of PharmD graduates was 12,639, a 15% decrease from a peak of 14,905 in 2018. Additionally, pharmacy schools are receiving the lowest number of applications in almost 20 years. The lack of interest in becoming a pharmacist results from negative perceptions from reports of burnout, poor working conditions, length of training, and high tuition costs. Furthermore, a growing percentage of pharmacists choose to work in roles not directly related to pharmacy practice. Approximately 16% of licensed pharmacists work part-time (30 hours or fewer per week).
Pharmacy technician registration and credentialing requirements vary by state, making it more challenging to track supply. In 2013, the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board reported approximately 270,000 active Certified Pharmacy Technicians in the United States, increasing to 291,993 in 2023. Reasons for becoming a pharmacy technician include an interest in healthcare employment, short and affordable training, opportunities for career growth, flexible work environments, and the chance to contribute meaningfully to patient care. The role provides opportunities for career growth, flexible work environments, and the chance to contribute meaningfully to patient care.
Experience
Pharmacy practice spans the continuum of care (e.g., hospital, clinic, retail, specialty, long-term care, mail-delivery) and all patient populations (e.g., adult, pediatric, primary care, medical and surgical specialties). The variety of needs leads to situations where filling specific positions becomes challenging to find candidates with the right experience. Globally, loss of expertise also creates challenges related to training and mentorship. In 2019, nearly half (47.7%) of practicing pharmacists were aged 40 years or younger, a substantial increase from 24.4% in 2009.
Geography
Supply, demand, and experience assessments are usually done at a national level and may not account for differences in location. As with other healthcare professions, urban areas generally have a higher concentration of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians than rural areas.
Turnover
Pharmacists tend to have lower turnover rates than the rest of the healthcare workforce. Of the turnover that does exist, hospital settings tend to be lower than retail settings. Conversely, pharmacy technician turnover is very high relative to the rest of the healthcare workforce, with rates as high as 25%. One of the challenges for pharmacy technicians is the broad scope of potential duties ranging from more straightforward tasks like stocking and delivery to highly complex tasks like preparing chemotherapy, prior authorization, and medication histories. The most common driver of pharmacy technician turnover is the misalignment of wages with the responsibilities and demands of the job. The ability to find less stressful and demanding work, often with higher wages and better opportunities for wage growth, drives many to change careers. The financial cost of turnover is apparent to organizations (e.g., increased overtime, recruitment, and training costs). However, impacts on safety and quality are more salient.
Pharmacy: Future of Work
One model for addressing the future of work emphasizes three interconnected dimensions: Work (the what), Workforce (the who), and Workplace (the where). This model is one approach to identifying and organizing strategies to address the workforce shortage.
Work (The What)
The COVID-19 pandemic required many changes to “the what” and showed the pharmacy profession’s creativity, commitment, and resiliency. However, many aspects of pharmacy have returned to pre-pandemic norms over time. Unfortunately, these norms have not changed in some health systems in decades. Success in addressing the pharmacy workforce shortage will require a paradigm shift in practice models, including letting go of some historical roles and responsibilities to make room for work with a higher return on value. Additionally, expanding the use of technology and automation will be needed to improve efficiency and safety.
Workforce (The Who)
Health systems need to find community partners to help promote pharmacy career opportunities. Additionally, training programs, apprenticeships, precepting students, and pharmacy residencies will be required to build supply and aid recruitment. Creativity in compensation beyond wages should be investigated (e.g., student loan forgiveness, support for continuing education and professional development).
Workplace (The Where)
The idea of the workplace is more than just location (on-site, remote, hybrid), ergonomics, and lighting; it is the whole worker experience. The impact of scheduling should be more appreciated, including the importance of flexibility and the ability to take a vacation, attend professional conferences, and work part-time. Furthermore, leaders must identify and address workflow or technology irritations (i.e., pebbles in the shoe) that may seem minor individually but become significant collectively. Lastly, workplace culture should be inclusive and support the vision of joy in work.
In conclusion, the pharmacy workforce has many supply, demand, experience, geography, and turnover challenges. However, these challenges also provide an excellent opportunity to reimagine pharmacy.
Calls to Action
- Transform pharmacy practice models to drive value and efficiency.
- Invest in the development of the pharmacy technician workforce through internal training programs, apprenticeships, and residencies.
- Set a vision and strategy for your workplace across the pharmacy enterprise.
Looking for more information or assistance for your organization? Reach out to Visante today!
Subject Matter Experts: Dave Hager and Steve Rough