Drugstores and pharmacies are on a hiring spree as they prepare for the new coronavirus vaccines to become available to the public for the first time, The Wall Street Journal reports.
CVS, which already employees about 34,000 pharmacists and 65,000 technicians across the country, recently released a mass email “calling all pharmacists, nurses and pharmacy techs,” for both short-term and long-term positions.
Walgreens, which employs a combined 75,000 pharmacists and technicians, announced plans to add 25,000 employees, including about 8,000 or 9,000 health care workers.
“There is a sense of pride, of wanting to step up,” Rick Gates, Walgreens senior vice president, told the Journal. “We have people coming out of retirement saying, ‘I absolutely want to help.’”
The newspaper notes that smaller grocery store chains, which often contain a pharmacy, have a less optimistic outlook about how many people, especially technicians, they can afford to hire.
“There’s not enough people to immunize. It’s going to take all hands on deck,” said Aaron Wiese, the chief health officer at Midwest grocery chain Hy-Vee Inc., which he said has about 1,300 pharmacy technicians in about 270 pharmacies, and they’re looking to hire an additional 1,000 to help distribute the vaccine and conduct testing.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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