[Research on the forecasting of trends in demand for pharmacists 2011-2035]

The first crop of pharmacists graduating from 6-year programs in pharmaceutical l education arrived in April 2012, and it will be important to incorporate new factors when predicting future trends in supply and demand for pharmacists. If we project supply given an exam pass rate of 75%, the supply of pharmacists will increase for the next 10 years or so if the number of exam takers is about 10000, and no decrease in the total number of pharmacists is expected until 2035. At pharmacies, a high degree of demand for the services of pharmacists can be expected to result from increases in the number of elderly patients and the number of patients receiving prescriptions, together with expanded accommodation of home health care, if the proportion of prescriptions that are actually filled up to 70%. At hospitals, demand has been projected to increase over the short term, owing to such factors as the trend toward having a resident pharmacist in each ward, advances in team medicine, and the spread of outpatient chemotherapy. Given the rising enrollment quotas for schools of pharmacy, and if the current supply and demand for pharmacists are maintained, we cannot rule out the possibility that pharmacists will come to be in excess supply within a 10-year horizon if the number of unemployed continues to decrease and the employment rate continues to improve along with changes in economic conditions and the consciousness of graduates of the 6-year programs.