AUSTRALIA'S pharmacy sector is enduring its worst workforce shortage in decades with recruiters struggling to fill positions in stores across regional, rural and metropolitan areas.
With close to 20 years' experience in the pharmacy sector, Raven's Recruitment General Manager Australia and New Zealand, Heidi Dariz, told Pharmacy Daily that owners in some areas have been unable to attract candidates despite offering significantly above Award rates.
"I started at Raven's in 2002 and we had shortages then," she said.
"But this is worse than what I saw then, I've never seen it this bad."
Dariz noted the emergence of new pharmacy programs in the mid to late 2000s created an oversupply of pharmacists, which has subsequently suppressed wages and driven some out of the profession.
"At first they were leaving to go to hospital pharmacy, because it's better paid," she said.
"But now they're getting out altogether.
"It's frightening what I'm seeing - obviously in the rural areas we've always had it tough, but now it's virtually impossible.
"And we're seeing it in the cities as well - sometimes we have locum roles in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne and we can't fill them."
Dariz said the workforce shortages have been exacerbated by the impacts of COVID-19, particularly when it comes to getting locums.
"We've got the shortages, we've got people leaving the industry, and then COVID on top of that," she said.
"I had an emergency situation on Sun night, a guy rang me out in rural Queensland at about 9pm and said, 'my pharmacist has broken his leg, can you get someone here tomorrow morning'?
"I've got 500 [Queensland-based locum] pharmacists on my database, I bulk emailed the whole lot - [and] didn't have one to go there.
"A lot of the problem is we've a pool of 10 or 15 [locums] that we work with for emergency-type situtations, but they're working on other emergencies, because people are close contacts, they've been somewhere like a Kmart or Bunnings and they've got to isolate for 14 days, so I've got emergency locums working their shifts."
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 27 Jul 21
To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 27 Jul 21
