Second quarter biotech job picture

In the second quarter of 2010, biotech and pharmaceutical postings on the three representative job databases tracked by Nature Biotechnology (Tables 1 and 2) largely stayed the same from the previous quarter (Nat. Biotechnol. 28, 527, 2010). Noteworthy increases in job openings were seen from instrument systems and consumables manufacturers Life Technologies (Carlsbad, CA, USA), PerkinElmer (Waltham, MA, USA), Bio-Rad Laboratories (Hercules, CA, USA) and Illumina (San Diego).

Table 1 Who's hiring? Advertised openings at the 25 largest biotech companies

Table 2 Advertised job openings at the ten largest pharma companies

Table 3 shows selected downsizings within the life science industry. Nature Biotechnology will continue to follow hiring and firing trends throughout 2010.

Table 3 Selected biotech and pharma downsizings