It has been a while since Happi last polled chemists about the state of their employment; in fact, our last query was in 2014, back when Barack Obama was President, Donald J. Trump was mulling his future (winning) run for the seat inside the White House, and when the unemployment rate was more than 6%!
 
As in the past, this year’s survey was conducted online this spring and our respondents came from manufacturers of personal care/beauty products, household products and industrial and institutional cleaning products (I&I) as well as suppliers that offer raw materials and other service providers, such as testing firms.
 
We asked similar questions about the types of products you are working on, how many years of experience you have, your education and what bugs you the most at work, but added some new questions, too (for example, if you have felt discriminated against in the workplace).
 
There’s good news in this year’s report:  back in our last survey (2014), 11.5% of you reported that you had to lay off staff. This year, we were happy to see that less than 6% of our respondents said that they had to lay off staff, and more importantly, 46% said they hired new staff in the past year.
 
The information below includes some basic data points to ponder. In the coming months, we will drill down into those numbers to offer snapshots for each job function (chemists v. managers, male v. female, etc)—so be sure to check in on Happi.com  and social media—Tweet us at @HappiChemist and @HappiMagazine and join our LinkedIn Group. We’re on Faceboook and Instagram too, if those are your favorite feeds.
 
Lastly, thank you to all who participated, and congratulations to the winner of the $100 American Express gift card. (We sent you an email). We have your card at the Happi booth here at NYSCC Suppliers Day. Stop by and pick it up. We’d love to meet you in person.

(All charts, unless otherwise noted, show percentage of responses).