Pharmacy Technicians

67% (High Risk)

High Risk (61-80%): Jobs in this category face a significant threat from automation, as many of their tasks can be easily automated using current or near-future technologies.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

User poll

Sentiment

The following graph is included wherever there is a substantial amount of votes to render meaningful data. These visual representations display user poll results over time, providing a significant indication of sentiment trends.

Wages

Very low paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Pharmacy Technicians' was $40,300, or $19 per hour

'Pharmacy Technicians' were paid 16.1% lower than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

Comments

AB (Highly likely) 2 months ago

Based on a retail pharmacy in which I work, we already use a variety of robots and technology to count prescriptions, determine which tablet/capsule is being counted, and find contraindications. Besides patient and prescriber contact, it is very likely that AI could take this position.

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Eric (Low) 1 year ago

I am a Chemotherapy pharmacy technician in a hospital. There are certain compounds that will always require a human to hand make and deliver.

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Anon (Highly likely) 1 year ago

This is because the professional training of pharmacy technicians is already getting automated by existing technology in pharmacies, and this trend will continue to grow.

One other thing is that their medical training is something that can get replaced not only by future technology but also by pharmacists. This will result in this job becoming obsolete within the next few decades.

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RxAndroid 3 years ago

Techs are already being replaced by automation dispensing units. I don't think there will be a 100% replacement but rather a change in role of technicians in being able to manage machinery and like others have mentioned, handle situations that can not be planned out.

You can either embrace and adapt to technology/change or get replaced by A.I...I sure as hell know that I'll be the one who continues to manage automation dispensing machines. Legislation is the other hurdle to overcome with regards to pharmacist oversight of automation (state laws will dictate over federal)

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Hospital Employee (Uncertain) 3 years ago

Yes, but you also need technicians to maintain the robots, make deliveries (hospitals), answer phone calls, help customers, billing, medical etc. Thankfully I am an “Automation Specialist” for hospital pharmacy. Pyxis doesn’t take care of itself that’s for sure!

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J Burrows (No chance) 4 years ago

There are some aspects of the role that can be completely automated but there are others that cannot. For example, as registered professionals in the course of their duties, technicians will encounter situations that cannot be planned for. They have a responsibility to draw upon their knowledge and experience to make a professional judgement that considers the best outcome for their patient(s) and upholds the safety and well being of patients, staff and public society. In some circumstances, this may lead to a decision to contravene normal procedure or regulations if there is reasonably defensible justification. In addition, where automation can be implemented, these processes would still require human supervision by someone with specialist pharmacy training and technicians are best placed to do this. Whilst job numbers may be reduced by automation, the role will not become totally redundant anytime soon.

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Alice (Moderate) 5 years ago

Techs are likely to be replaced in my opinion. We can say that pharmacists don't like doing tech work, but their feelings really don't matter in this job market. Qualified Pharmacists are struggling to find jobs right now. And with so many pharmacy schools opening, the competition is going to become stiffer and stiffer.

Also low level clerical work (like monitoring diversion of controlled substances) is already highly likely to be automated.

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pharmtekken 5 years ago

For the regular pharmacy tech I can see automation on the Horizon, but one thing remains certain Pharmacists will always only want to do "pharmacist work" and not want to do "tech work" thats not what they went to school for. Pharmacists enjoy the luxury of not being frontline when dealing with customers i.e. ringing them out at the register, answering non clinical questions at the pharmacy or over the phone. What I would advise the SMART pharmacy technician to do is to get out of retail. There are call centers and hospitals which I feel automation of tech duties would be hard to replace

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Cooper (Uncertain) 5 years ago

Some techs have other duties, like monitoring diversion by hospital personnel of controlled substances.

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