Hiring Trends in the Life Sciences – Where are We Now?

Aug 05, 2019

By Karla Talanian, Director of Talent & Workforce Development at MassBioEd

Ask anyone in this industry about hiring and the answer is the same – it’s at an all-time high.  Companies are scrambling to find talent, often for jobs that didn’t exist a decade ago. 

The purpose of the MassBioEd Foundation is to build and maintain a life sciences workforce, and a part of this involves informing stakeholders on current job trends, such as:

  • Demographic projections indicate a stagnation in the overall number of future college graduates.
  • The increase in demand for doctoral level scientists over the past few years has been much higher than the increase in conferrals. 
  • The explosion of jobs in data science means that we are now competing with other industries – high tech, retail, finance – for early career professionals.
  •  Over a third of the life science workforce is foreign-born, yet recent changes in practice may lead to a significant decline in the number of non-citizen scientists available to work here.

With these challenges we have to ask ourselves, “How will we continue to fill the talent pipeline?”

Our Annual Job Trends Outlook for the Life Sciences Industry in Massachusetts is critical to helping MassBio member companies and the industry at large find solutions to the various hiring challenges – but we need input from industry leaders and decision makers – like you – to do this effectively.  Please take a few minutes to complete our 2019 Hiring Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9B9WSF6

Feedback from this survey will be incorporated into the Annual Outlook, providing real-life, boots-on-the-ground context to the aggregated numbers available elsewhere.  Your insights will help us to clarify trends in hiring in the life sciences throughout the region and identify commonly shared hurdles. 

  • Which professionals are the most difficult to find?
  • What type of talent will you need to hire for over the next year? 
  • Are transportation or cost of living issues affecting your ability to recruit? 
  • Do you have employees experiencing barriers because of immigration status?
  • Would your employees benefit from having more training options?

These and other timely, relevant topics are covered in the survey, and we want all of MassBio’s member companies’ views represented.

The survey results also offer clarity to educators involved with designing curricula and teaching the next generation – your future employees.  Participating in this survey provides a simple but effective way to offer suggestions on what college and graduate students should be learning over the next few years.  It takes less than eight minutes to complete. Please submit your feedback now and pass the link along to your colleagues!

Survey Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9B9WSF6

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