<p>I’d seriously steer clear of chemistry and the pharmaceuticals industry in general. Pharma it has been a blood bath of layoffs due to the patent cliff and I don’t see them recovering anytime soon since it takes 10 years to get new drugs to market and they seem to be hoping to replace American scientists with cheaper third world slaves. </p>
<p>In general chemistry is a horrible field to be in. Unemployment has been skyrocketing, companies have been abusing their science staff like no other profession keeping them as contractors via a temp agency to not give benefits and offering horrible pay of ~$15 an hour fit for a fast food supervisor. Most of the people i graduated with have left the field to teach, go into healthcare, or just abandon science all together. I will probably have to do that to if anything happens to my current job.</p>
<p>If you have to do something chemistry do chemical engineering. It is a far better bet for reasonable employment.</p>