The US pharma market is about 15x larger than ours based on population but is still dominated by a few major players.
Walmart is apparently struggling and the ‘drug store’ industry is consolidating in multiple ways. With US economies of scale, lack of worker protections for the most part, and some ideologists in Australia lusting after the US economic model for everything whether potentially applicable, good, bad, or indifferent; there could be a reasonable argument for artificially protecting chemists; I am not taking sides although I have my preferences, but note which related staff are being ‘reduced’ at Walmart as an example of how it inevitably goes.
In many business/government services it is common to try to ‘lose’ senior staff because they cost more in salary and sick leave as they age. The accountants in charge equate a new hire straight out of school as equally skilled and better for their ledgers with a staff who has decades of experience and a top track record.
As the first world transforms from a production to a service model an honest question is whether that might require inefficiencies, eg more artificial protections and more services with more fees to any given activity as part of the overall employment picture. As production has become more and more mechanised the balance between producers and workers/consumers has shifted. A never ending question is what and where are the jobs? Will related inefficiencies through protections of some businesses such as chemists be a necessary component? One of the examples of questionably necessary added services might be the myriad booking sites that once served major concerts, but now are into adding fees tor dinner bookings.
