Global Hiring Trends in Life Sciences

ZRG Partners (Westborough, MA) has released its analysis of overall life sciences hiring trends for Q3 2010 and if you live outside of the Americas, hiring trends are generally up.

The Asia Pacific, Japan, and Australia (APAC) region showed the greatest overall increase in hiring (20% up from Q2). The European, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region increased hiring by 10%. But the Americas showed a 2% decline in hiring.

Regional Differences

The APAC region grew its IT and finance by 74% but sales and marketing hiring was down. According to the ZRG report, the results point to a slowdown in the desire among employers to add new revenue generators while developing their core support systems.

The EMEA showed high hiring trends in regulatory, quality, and clinical fields (19% up from Q2). Manufacturing-related hiring was also up (28%). Sales and marketing hiring, and research and development hiring was basically flat.

In the Americas, there was an overall decline of 2%, but research and development hiring increased by 23%. The decline was in IT, finance, and executive roles. An increase in research and development is an investment in future growth, according to the report.

Overall, sales and marketing hiring in all regions was down by 20%, and overall research and development was down 5%. Despite these losses, the overall trend for life sciences is good. The APAC region saw a 39% increase in overall jobs and the EMEA had a 21% increase. There was an overall 45% increase in regulatory, quality, and clinical hiring.