ASCP is in the process of conducting the second wave of its 11th Wage and Vacancy Survey to provide salary data and determine the extent and distribution of shortages within the nation’s clinical laboratory workforce. For the first time, ASCP is being joined by AACC, ASCLS, CLMA, and The Joint Commission in the administration of this survey. Our thanks to each of these organizations and to the CDC for providing us with the basis for the development of a sampling frame of U.S. laboratories.

If you are responsible for hiring decisions in your laboratory and did not participate in the first wave of the survey but would like to support our data collection efforts, please click on this link: http://surveys.morpace.com/m080315.

This confidential survey of hospital, reference, and physician office laboratory facilities has been administered every two years since 1988, and serves as the primary source of information for academic, governmental, and industry labor analysts in defining the state of the nation’s clinical laboratory workforce. In addition, laboratory managers and medical directors rely on this survey to confirm their staff budget assumptions and to develop hiring and retention strategies.

The first wave of this two-wave study ran from November 2007 through January 2008, resulting in 1,332 completed questionnaires. In an effort to increase laboratory participation, a second wave of data collection is now underway and will be completed on September 25, 2008. Look for the results of the survey with a complete analysis in the January 2009 issue of LABMEDICINE.