I had a 30-year career as a BA chemist. I always was able to find full-time work (in analytical laboratories). In the San Francisco Bay Area I was even able to do research, designing sample preparation methods (although most laboratory jobs are just routine following of well-established methods). In my (Northern California) experience there are considerably less jobs for PhD chemists, although the jobs they get pay much better and naturally access research, teaching and chemical fields in addition to analytical.
To see where other people got to with just a bachelor’s degree in chemistry (and other relevant details) look at http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Bachelor_of_Science_%28BS_%2f_BSc%29%2c_Chemistry/Salary. To see where people got to starting with a bachelor’s in chemistry (and possibly adding degree(s) to it), go to the Students Review dot com site, adding “/contact_center.php3?searchpid=9” after “com”.
If you always want to be sure of a job in chemistry, get substantial experience (at least a few months) operating a GC/MS (gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer). HPLC experience is almost as good.