Is The Chemical Industry Dying?

This is a question which should be bothering you if you’re thinking about working in R&D, engineering, patents or other technical or business functions in fine or bulk chemicals, the pharmaceutical industry, the environmental sector, petrochemicals, food, brewing, polymers, nanotech …

In other words, it could affect a lot of postgrads – and of course, there’s no easy answer to the question.

The best way I’ve found to keep up to date with what’s happening in the chemical industry is to follow the “The Commercial Chemist” posts in the Chemical World blog from the RSC.

In the most recent post, I’ve learnt that:

• Merck are due to shed 15,000 jobs worldwide now that the Schering-Plough merger is complete
• Novartis is planning to build the largest R&D institute in China, increasing jobs from 160 to over 1000
• Ineos Bio is doing a feasibility study into a new bio-energy plant in the North East
• Shell is cutting 5,000 jobs (though they are still currently looking for new postgrads – see recent tweet for details)
• Cost savings at Rhodia have led to increased 3rd quarter profits (up year on year by 19.5%) on reduced sales (down 15% year on year)

There’s a new update every Friday, plus lots of other chemical content in between.

For instance, you can watch a student “singing” all the elements of the Periodic Table, in order to a Russian folk melody – though I admit I prefer the old standard :

Courtesy of Harvard academic, Tom Lehrer. It dates back to 1959 which is why there are some elements missing, including the latest new element on the block, Copernicium.