EMPLOYMENT
JOB MARKET FOR CHEMISTS FALTERS ACS survey shows sudden jump in joblessness while salaries post solid gains
T
HE LATEST ANNUAL AMERI-
can Chemical Society survey of the employment status and salaries of its chemist members reveals a jarring increase in those who are unemployed but seeking employment—to 3 3 % . This is more than twice what it was ayear ago and one ofthe highest levels in the more than 30-year history of the survey In contrast, the survey also indicates a median salary gain for individual chemists of almost 5% over last year. This compares with a 1.5% rate of inflation. Last year's survey indicated the best job situation for chemists in a decade, with a relatively low 1.5% unemployed. It also indicat-
MATERIALS
ed that chemists had, rather belatedly caught up with the biggest economic boom in U.S. history, from 1993 through 2000. These surveys, conducted by ACS's Department of Career Services, are as of March 1 each year. A full report on this year's survey will be in C&EN's Aug. 5 issue. Chemists had struggled during the early years of the boom with, in 1995,2.6% unemployed, 3.6% onpostdocs, and 2.7% employed part time, for a total 8.9% of chemists with other than a fulltime job. By last year, this total was down to a more comfortable 5.4%. Now it is back up to 7.8%, with the 3-3% unemployed, a rather unusually low 1.5% on post-
docs, and 3.0% working part time. The latest version of ACS's oth er annual survey—of new chem istry graduates each O c t o b e r had shown some incipient weak ness (C&EN, March 18, page 51). It indicated that 2 0 0 0 - 0 1 grad uates did quite well in acquiring full-time jobs but not as well as 1999-2000 graduates. Chemists are not alone with employment challenges these days. Between April 2 0 0 0 and April 2002, unemployment in the U.S. rose from 5.5 million to 8.6 million. Of college graduates in the workforce in April 2 0 0 0 , 551,000, or 1.5%, were without jobs. ByApril 2002, that number was 1,158,000, or 3.0%. T h e median base salary of chemists with full-time jobs re sponding to this year's survey is $76,600. For those with a bach elor's degree, it is $58,000; for those with a master's, $68,500; andforPh.D.s, $85,200.The me dian year-to-year increase for all respondents as individuals is 4.8%. The mean gain is 6.7%.—
SURGE Unemployment among chemists jumped in 2002 % of chemists unemployed
0
llllil
1997 98 99 00 0102 SOURCE: ACS annual salary and employment surveys
MICHAEL HEYLIN
SCIENCE
ALIGNING POLYMER NANOTUBES, EASILY New method yields nanoscale structures from polymers and blends
A
NEW CHEMICAL P R O C E -
dure can be used to prepare neatly aligned nanotubes from a wide range of polymers, polymer blends, and multicomponent solutions, according to researchers in Germany The work provides a general technique for preparing functionalized structures for applications in nanotechnology By wetting ordered porous templates with droplets of polymer melts or polymer solutions, Martin Steinhart andJoachim H. Wendorff of Philipps University in Marburg, Ralf B. Wehrspohn and Ulrich M. Gôsele of Max Planck Institute of MicrostrucHTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
ture Physics in Halle, and coworkers coat template surfaces with polymerfilmsthat retain the shape of the template's pore array after the template is removed by chemical means [Science, 2 9 6 , 1997(2002)]. Using lithographically prepared alumina and oxidized silicon templates, the team prepared nanotubes with walls 20 to 50 nm thick and lengths ofup to 100 μπι. The group demonstrated the technique's versatility by fabri cating nanotubes from polytetrafluoroethylene, polymethylmeth acrylate, poly-L-lactide/palladium acetate, and other materials. The products are hollow, the
researchers explain, because the adhesive forces between the poly mer melts or solutions and the template walls are greater than the cohesive forces needed to turn the polymers into solid plugs inside the template channels. Wetting template surfaces with thin films takes place on a faster timescale than completely filling the pores, the group says. The unwanted pore-filling process is shut down because, in the case of polymer melts, the material cools and hard ens as it coats the surface. And with polymer solutions, the sol vent evaporates as the solution wets the surface.-M ITCH JAC0BY
PACKED An elec tron micrograph shows that a simple and fast procedure can be used to prepare nicely ordered polymer nanotubes (poly styrene shown here).
C & E N / J U N E 17, 2002
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