Pharmacy, Medical Tech Majors Land on High-Unemployment List

Not every healthcare degree is a guaranteed path to a job. Pharmacy and medical technician majors rank among the 30 college majors with the highest unemployment rates, according to an Aug. 29 WalletHub post cited by Becker's Hospital Review. The ranking draws on 2024 data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Anthropology topped the overall list.

The finding is counterintuitive given how often hospital and health system leaders describe chronic staffing shortages. The tension points to a mismatch between how graduates are trained and where actual demand sits. Pharmacy, in particular, has seen an oversupply of graduates as new schools opened over the past two decades, softening the job market even as clinical roles elsewhere go unfilled.

For workforce planners, the takeaway is that credentials alone do not track with employment. Health systems recruiting for hard-to-fill bedside and technical roles may need to rethink pipelines, retraining, and how they match degree programs to real openings rather than assuming a healthcare diploma equals a hire.