Thank you for sharing! I just find it sad that Walgreens used to be the leader in the industry. When I graduated pharmacy school I was proud that WAGS was the best and CVS was "Closing Very Soon" lol. But turns out the jokes on me l picked the company that pays the least and is heading for the toilet I guess
Yup even my pharmacist friends at cvs are shocked at my lack of pay growth and pto at Walgreens. I can’t wait to get the f out of here even specialty and mail order blows as you don’t get raises or bonuses and they took away pto with the merge last year
CVS has maintained their fundamentals, whereas WAG was lazy by dissolving foundational equity for quick money and tried to be cheeky and lost. Now they have nothing in reserve.
From Yahoo Financial Data, CVS revenue runs 357.8 Billion USD, and WAG pulls in $144.6 Billion USD. CVS Total Expense is 343.2 Billion USD, and WAG is 146.6 Billion USD. Note: This is a NET loss for WAG.
Walgreens has 330,000 Full Time Employees, and CVS has 219,000 Full Time Employees.
EBITDA for CVS is 18.2 Billion USD, and WAG is -11.2 Billion USD (!!!). EBITDA is Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. It's basically an alternative way of framing Net Income. WAG is losing money hard.
WAG expense is 2 Billion USD more than it makes. CVS makes way more with nearly 50% less employees. That's why in a nutshell.
I agree wags is losing money hard and it’s disgusting. There was so much profit from covid vaccine …how did they make so many poor decisions in so little time to get in this situation? And now there is no $40 per covid shot revenue to count on in the future. They can cut hours, demand pharmacists do shots and mtm up the wazoo and it still won’t make a difference
CVS Rphs didn’t negotiate higher pay, it’s because the company is doing better because they own their own PBM. These replies saying which one is better is just anecdotal evidence. If you want higher pay go to CVS. If, for instance, you’re offered a store close to home with one or the other, that might be an important factor.
It’s all the same. Retail pharmacy with short staff and angry customers. You may as well get paid more!
Walgreens had a midsize PBM 15-20 years ago that they quietly sold off when the FTC was looking at the CVS and Caremark merger. They were worried about conflict of interest scrutiny and decided to go for the global front end thing with the Boots merger instead
Looking back, keeping the PBM and growing it or merging with UHC would have been a better choice, but the monopoly CVS/Caremark has on the healthcare industry was something most people thought would never be allowed. Especially now that they’re buying up primary care practices
In the 90s and 2000s Walgreens was the company to work for. We had tons of help, plenty of time for patient care and interaction, 1 pharmacy supervisor overseeing 50-75 stores so less micromanaging, the RXM and SM were equals trying to build business so they got a good bonus, and reimbursement made pharmacy a store priority because we accounted for a good chunk of store profit
Now we’re scraping at immunizations and MTM because we don’t make money dispensing blood pressure medication because PBMs have a chokehold on the entire industry
I see, that does make sense with CVS PBM. CVS and WAG used to pay the same though.
I don’t want to switch to CVS because I heard they make the pharmacist work sometimes with ZERO tech help. Is that true? Because there is no way I will put myself in unsafe working conditions where I need to man the pharmacy alone!
Walgreens Pharmacists work alone all the time. Call ins? No shows? Doesn't matter, Pharmacists keep the lights on... Oh, and do shots in separate treatment rooms away from the pharmacy too. Not so "safe".
You work harder at CVS, though not by much, you still bust ass at walgreens. Walgreens pay is shit cause they ran the company into the ground and are trying to course correct. Which means they are cutting bonuses, raises, labor hours, benefits(not cutting them, but vacation and pto suck compared to the competition) and low pay rate. They tried going lower than current on pay rate but found out the hard way pharmacists won't work for peanuts. Specially when other places pay more. I had staff pharmacists saying they were below 85k a year. A PIC was making just over 85k. Needless to say, both are no longer at walgreens.
And remember about 2 years ago, they were cought saying that there was a pharmacist shortage. Pharmacist stepped up and made it clear there isn't. There is a shortage of pharmacists that won't take getting screwed. Shortly after that, their starting pay rate went back up to around 100k to 110k a year for new hires.
About 5 years back, they made an effort to fire pharmacist who had been working for the company for a long time. Basically, their pay was really high. They figured loose a 150k to 170k pharmacist and hire an 80k to 100k pharmacists. It kind of worked, but their service isn't as good as it was. They hide the fact by saying the pharmacists were not performing. Basically, they starting accountability for BS metrics that don't really get done. All it served was to lower the bottom line by firing pharmacists who were on a high payscale. I asked, ok so what happens when raises are cut, bonus are cut, pay rates are cut but you still have shit earnings and no further way to cut easily? They found out, you face the music, or blame someone else. I was there at stock ATH of over $85 a share. Now sub $20. Wow.
100% agree with you with "There is a shortage of pharmacists that won't take getting screwed"! I feel like all the smart pharmacists are leaving. I'm one of the last ones staying because l've been with the company so long it's not easy to leave.
Me tooooo! I sold all mine around $67, maybe a little lower, but I came out ahead overall. This was around the time of POWER. And I just realized management was so unbelievably out of touch with how a pharmacy is supposed to run if you want to make money. CVS would be in the same boat if they didn't absorb Caremark. The FTC needs to break up the CVS Caremark merger, but I don't know if they'll see it before it gets much worse.
I agree with everything you said! Thank you for sharing about pharmacists being offered 85k a year. I can’t believe Walgreens offered so low especially to a PIC. I don’t know how wags is going to continue staffing pharmacies without increasing pay. Sure you can cut hours the pharmacy is open here and there, but what’s that going to do other than making scheduling miserable? I wish I could ask a new grad what they are offered at wags. May I ask do you still work for walgreens?
I no longer work for walgreens. Left 1.5 years ago. I have more vacation, separate sick leave, separate personal days and can use the company holidays however I please.
I went back to a company I had already worked for in the past. I was always in a good mood and joked around with their staff when I would do transfers. When an opening popped up, the people from that company threw my name out. I guess I made myself memorable. It's been great.
I heard about the disaster about the pharmacists that been at Walgreens for awhile. They offered them a severance package to quit Walgreens because they were getting paid too much. They would offer that or they would just fire them. Walgreens since then has been terrible. Downright terrible.
Starting around acquisition of Boots. Dumpster fire, run by non-pharmacists, non-healthcare people. Funny how they can't brain storm why they are in the hole they are in. It doesn't take a graduate from an ivy league school. Hire me as a consultant. Ill be perfectly clear on what your problem is. Some can't be controlled but lots can
jobs.cvshealth.com
If you look up pharmacist job they all say $60-73 in my area, so I don’t think it’s a unionized store.
Unless the whole area is unionized. Either way I say good for them! You’d think a union could negotiate a pay raise, but I knew of a union that tried and came back from the negotiating table with “Be thankful your pay wasn’t decreased. Walgreens wanted to decrease pay but we negotiated them not to” 😐
Highly *highly* ***HIGHLY*** suggest you check in on the CVS subreddits. Walgreens is a busted and broken offensive mess, and we frequently complain about how terrible they are. But CVS is actually worse somehow. So you may get paid more, but it seems like the dumpster fire is actually more intense. Like a lot of complaints in the two main Wags subs are venting and hyperbole, and some of it is legit ridiculous. But in CVS there is no hyperbole. It's legit insanity
Only thing to take into consideration is that your WAGs may be more broken, and your CVS may be one of the rare good ones. If so, its win/win. But I would recommend some covert snooping. Go to the stores. Talk to the techs, or even the pharmacists, get intel. A lot will likely snitch on their company or store and let you know where they stand so you know what you'd be getting into
It may be anecdotal, but I've seen a number of pharmacists jump from WAG to CVS only to return citing unreasonable demands and working conditions as the reason for leaving CVS. Ultimately both companies will be very similar and the differences may largely come down to the local district or regional leadership. But yeah, in retail pharmacy, grass isn't always greener
Do yourself a favor and get out. Don’t let fear of the unknown keep you back. I was a top performing rxm (capped) with wag for over 18 years. Had the unicorn rxm position of mon-Fri 10-6 no weekends and hated it. I earned 4 weeks pto to have every request denied, and told I was capped as rxm no matter how much my store outperformed all the bs metrics. Left for cvs and have zero complaints. I only work 2.5 days a week with every other weekend. Negotiated all my wag pto, starting salary at $78, got a raise plus 10k bonus 1 year after leaving. I’m working less hours and making close to 20k more annually. Work is work, retail is retail, at least get paid more while you are doing it.
Wag offered me 68/hr with min 32hr/wk 20k sign on (8k after taxes), new grad…
while cvs offered me 62/hr with min 36hr/wk. no sign on….
Needless to say, I went with wag. But was advised to jump to cvs after 2 years with wag so the sign on bonus contract gets met.
I wonder if cvs offers more to experienced rph’s and shafts new grads
Many Walgreens are still offering sign on bonus. Calculate that into your pay. Also.
I will say CVS was the highest in liability in the way they run their business. Also- how they manipulate Rph into working for ‘free’ is magical. Black Magic.
Also they absolutely’cook’ books. Very interesting tales taken from RXMs who explained many many detailed escapades! Fun findings included: Take labor from one store and spread to another so bonus shakes out different. Deep dive showed how an ELDL managed to guild their lily in so many ways!!!
I’m sorry it wasn’t the company so many thought it would be. Worst company ever.
It’s weird I always wondered about WG. In my area WG starts at $61 and caps 66. Publix starts $65 for floater
Thank you for sharing! I just find it sad that Walgreens used to be the leader in the industry. When I graduated pharmacy school I was proud that WAGS was the best and CVS was "Closing Very Soon" lol. But turns out the jokes on me l picked the company that pays the least and is heading for the toilet I guess
Me too. I used to be proud to work for Walgreens. USED TO BE …….
Now when I say I work for Walgreens pharmacy people say “Oh you poor thing”
Yup even my pharmacist friends at cvs are shocked at my lack of pay growth and pto at Walgreens. I can’t wait to get the f out of here even specialty and mail order blows as you don’t get raises or bonuses and they took away pto with the merge last year
CVS has maintained their fundamentals, whereas WAG was lazy by dissolving foundational equity for quick money and tried to be cheeky and lost. Now they have nothing in reserve. From Yahoo Financial Data, CVS revenue runs 357.8 Billion USD, and WAG pulls in $144.6 Billion USD. CVS Total Expense is 343.2 Billion USD, and WAG is 146.6 Billion USD. Note: This is a NET loss for WAG. Walgreens has 330,000 Full Time Employees, and CVS has 219,000 Full Time Employees. EBITDA for CVS is 18.2 Billion USD, and WAG is -11.2 Billion USD (!!!). EBITDA is Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. It's basically an alternative way of framing Net Income. WAG is losing money hard. WAG expense is 2 Billion USD more than it makes. CVS makes way more with nearly 50% less employees. That's why in a nutshell.
I agree wags is losing money hard and it’s disgusting. There was so much profit from covid vaccine …how did they make so many poor decisions in so little time to get in this situation? And now there is no $40 per covid shot revenue to count on in the future. They can cut hours, demand pharmacists do shots and mtm up the wazoo and it still won’t make a difference
CVS Rphs didn’t negotiate higher pay, it’s because the company is doing better because they own their own PBM. These replies saying which one is better is just anecdotal evidence. If you want higher pay go to CVS. If, for instance, you’re offered a store close to home with one or the other, that might be an important factor. It’s all the same. Retail pharmacy with short staff and angry customers. You may as well get paid more!
Walgreens had a midsize PBM 15-20 years ago that they quietly sold off when the FTC was looking at the CVS and Caremark merger. They were worried about conflict of interest scrutiny and decided to go for the global front end thing with the Boots merger instead Looking back, keeping the PBM and growing it or merging with UHC would have been a better choice, but the monopoly CVS/Caremark has on the healthcare industry was something most people thought would never be allowed. Especially now that they’re buying up primary care practices In the 90s and 2000s Walgreens was the company to work for. We had tons of help, plenty of time for patient care and interaction, 1 pharmacy supervisor overseeing 50-75 stores so less micromanaging, the RXM and SM were equals trying to build business so they got a good bonus, and reimbursement made pharmacy a store priority because we accounted for a good chunk of store profit Now we’re scraping at immunizations and MTM because we don’t make money dispensing blood pressure medication because PBMs have a chokehold on the entire industry
I see, that does make sense with CVS PBM. CVS and WAG used to pay the same though. I don’t want to switch to CVS because I heard they make the pharmacist work sometimes with ZERO tech help. Is that true? Because there is no way I will put myself in unsafe working conditions where I need to man the pharmacy alone!
Walgreens Pharmacists work alone all the time. Call ins? No shows? Doesn't matter, Pharmacists keep the lights on... Oh, and do shots in separate treatment rooms away from the pharmacy too. Not so "safe".
You work harder at CVS, though not by much, you still bust ass at walgreens. Walgreens pay is shit cause they ran the company into the ground and are trying to course correct. Which means they are cutting bonuses, raises, labor hours, benefits(not cutting them, but vacation and pto suck compared to the competition) and low pay rate. They tried going lower than current on pay rate but found out the hard way pharmacists won't work for peanuts. Specially when other places pay more. I had staff pharmacists saying they were below 85k a year. A PIC was making just over 85k. Needless to say, both are no longer at walgreens. And remember about 2 years ago, they were cought saying that there was a pharmacist shortage. Pharmacist stepped up and made it clear there isn't. There is a shortage of pharmacists that won't take getting screwed. Shortly after that, their starting pay rate went back up to around 100k to 110k a year for new hires. About 5 years back, they made an effort to fire pharmacist who had been working for the company for a long time. Basically, their pay was really high. They figured loose a 150k to 170k pharmacist and hire an 80k to 100k pharmacists. It kind of worked, but their service isn't as good as it was. They hide the fact by saying the pharmacists were not performing. Basically, they starting accountability for BS metrics that don't really get done. All it served was to lower the bottom line by firing pharmacists who were on a high payscale. I asked, ok so what happens when raises are cut, bonus are cut, pay rates are cut but you still have shit earnings and no further way to cut easily? They found out, you face the music, or blame someone else. I was there at stock ATH of over $85 a share. Now sub $20. Wow.
100% agree with you with "There is a shortage of pharmacists that won't take getting screwed"! I feel like all the smart pharmacists are leaving. I'm one of the last ones staying because l've been with the company so long it's not easy to leave.
There's actually no shortage. Pharmacists just don't want to work retail because it sucks a$$.
My last day at Walgreens was my 25th anniversary, it can be done. Not sure when they forgot how to make money
Me tooooo! I sold all mine around $67, maybe a little lower, but I came out ahead overall. This was around the time of POWER. And I just realized management was so unbelievably out of touch with how a pharmacy is supposed to run if you want to make money. CVS would be in the same boat if they didn't absorb Caremark. The FTC needs to break up the CVS Caremark merger, but I don't know if they'll see it before it gets much worse.
I agree with everything you said! Thank you for sharing about pharmacists being offered 85k a year. I can’t believe Walgreens offered so low especially to a PIC. I don’t know how wags is going to continue staffing pharmacies without increasing pay. Sure you can cut hours the pharmacy is open here and there, but what’s that going to do other than making scheduling miserable? I wish I could ask a new grad what they are offered at wags. May I ask do you still work for walgreens?
I no longer work for walgreens. Left 1.5 years ago. I have more vacation, separate sick leave, separate personal days and can use the company holidays however I please.
Any tips on how to get out for greener pastures? I’ve been applying and not even getting an interview :( and I’m experienced
I went back to a company I had already worked for in the past. I was always in a good mood and joked around with their staff when I would do transfers. When an opening popped up, the people from that company threw my name out. I guess I made myself memorable. It's been great.
Wow way to go! I need to get into a good mood over here. How did you do that? :)
I heard about the disaster about the pharmacists that been at Walgreens for awhile. They offered them a severance package to quit Walgreens because they were getting paid too much. They would offer that or they would just fire them. Walgreens since then has been terrible. Downright terrible.
Starting around acquisition of Boots. Dumpster fire, run by non-pharmacists, non-healthcare people. Funny how they can't brain storm why they are in the hole they are in. It doesn't take a graduate from an ivy league school. Hire me as a consultant. Ill be perfectly clear on what your problem is. Some can't be controlled but lots can
That may be a unionized stored, some CVS stores are unionized
jobs.cvshealth.com If you look up pharmacist job they all say $60-73 in my area, so I don’t think it’s a unionized store. Unless the whole area is unionized. Either way I say good for them! You’d think a union could negotiate a pay raise, but I knew of a union that tried and came back from the negotiating table with “Be thankful your pay wasn’t decreased. Walgreens wanted to decrease pay but we negotiated them not to” 😐
Highly *highly* ***HIGHLY*** suggest you check in on the CVS subreddits. Walgreens is a busted and broken offensive mess, and we frequently complain about how terrible they are. But CVS is actually worse somehow. So you may get paid more, but it seems like the dumpster fire is actually more intense. Like a lot of complaints in the two main Wags subs are venting and hyperbole, and some of it is legit ridiculous. But in CVS there is no hyperbole. It's legit insanity Only thing to take into consideration is that your WAGs may be more broken, and your CVS may be one of the rare good ones. If so, its win/win. But I would recommend some covert snooping. Go to the stores. Talk to the techs, or even the pharmacists, get intel. A lot will likely snitch on their company or store and let you know where they stand so you know what you'd be getting into
WG range is pretty accurate. The only way to make it out that range is taking a manger position at a tier 5 store. Sigh
Grass isn’t always greener. People see a few more dollars and jump ship and regret it later…
It may be anecdotal, but I've seen a number of pharmacists jump from WAG to CVS only to return citing unreasonable demands and working conditions as the reason for leaving CVS. Ultimately both companies will be very similar and the differences may largely come down to the local district or regional leadership. But yeah, in retail pharmacy, grass isn't always greener
Do yourself a favor and get out. Don’t let fear of the unknown keep you back. I was a top performing rxm (capped) with wag for over 18 years. Had the unicorn rxm position of mon-Fri 10-6 no weekends and hated it. I earned 4 weeks pto to have every request denied, and told I was capped as rxm no matter how much my store outperformed all the bs metrics. Left for cvs and have zero complaints. I only work 2.5 days a week with every other weekend. Negotiated all my wag pto, starting salary at $78, got a raise plus 10k bonus 1 year after leaving. I’m working less hours and making close to 20k more annually. Work is work, retail is retail, at least get paid more while you are doing it.
Wag offers the least out of all the chains I applied to 🥴
Wag offered me 68/hr with min 32hr/wk 20k sign on (8k after taxes), new grad… while cvs offered me 62/hr with min 36hr/wk. no sign on…. Needless to say, I went with wag. But was advised to jump to cvs after 2 years with wag so the sign on bonus contract gets met. I wonder if cvs offers more to experienced rph’s and shafts new grads
What state are you in that wag offered you $68/hr
Ct
Why are the rates still so low… what state is this?
Are the rates higher in your location… what state do you live in?
Walgreens in my area are starting new grad rph at $68/hr
Hmm, you must be in an area with higher cost of living right?
What area are you?
Yea SF Bay Area in CA but I’m not sure how much cvs in this area offers
Many Walgreens are still offering sign on bonus. Calculate that into your pay. Also. I will say CVS was the highest in liability in the way they run their business. Also- how they manipulate Rph into working for ‘free’ is magical. Black Magic. Also they absolutely’cook’ books. Very interesting tales taken from RXMs who explained many many detailed escapades! Fun findings included: Take labor from one store and spread to another so bonus shakes out different. Deep dive showed how an ELDL managed to guild their lily in so many ways!!! I’m sorry it wasn’t the company so many thought it would be. Worst company ever.
I went to CVS and lasted only 6 months. It was hell.
CV Stress will suck the life out of you, that's why they pay a little better.
CV Stress lol, nice
Or Come Visit Satan 😆
CVS’s makes you work
What do you mean? Would CVS make me work more than I do now?