Insight & Intelligence™ : Oct 23, 2012
10 Best U.S. Regions to Secure a Biotech Job
GEN shows you where careers are made.
More and more people are finding themselves migrating to different regions of the U.S. to find work, and people in the biopharma and biotech industries are no different. GEN has already written about what skills an R&D researcher should have and which biotech jobs will be most in demand over the next decade. Now, the question is, where are these jobs? In which regions are you most likely to find work in your field? Before you pack, you may want to take a look at the below list of regions with biopharma clusters ranked by number of jobs based on 2009–2010 data.
#10. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA MSA
2010: 9,048
2009: 9,071
Year-to-year job gain: -0.25%1
#9. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX
2010: 10,113
2009: 10,447
Year-to-year job gain: -3.20%1
#8. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA
2010: 22,147
2009: 21,354
Year-to-year job gain: 3.71%1
#7. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA
2010: 28,581
2009: 34,035
Year-to-year job gain: -16.02%1
#6. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy MSA
2010: 36,412
2009: 35,989
Year-to-year job gain: 1.18%1
#5. San Diego region
2010: 40,372
2009: 36,379
Year-to-year job gain: 11.0%2
#4. Los Angeles County
2010: 42,383
2009: 43,923
Year-to-year job gain: -3.51%3
#3. San Francisco Bay Area
2010: 51,255
2009: 51,945
Year-to-year job gain: -1.33%3
#2. North Carolina
2010: 58,495
2009: 57,053
Year-to-year job gain: 2.53%4
#1. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA
2010: 78,960
2009: 76,394
Year-to-year job gain: 3.36%1
References:
1 U.S. Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns database.
2 BIOCOM 2012 Southern California Economic Impact Report published by BIOCOM, the life science industry group for the San Diego region and southern California.
3 2012 California Biomedical Industry Report, published by California Healthcare Institute, BayBio, and PwC U.S.
4 North Carolina Biotechnology Center, BioSciNC company surveys as cited in “Response to NER Request,” Feb. 8, 2011.
Job data for some clusters have been furnished by regional groups as indicated. For regions lacking such data, GEN used a formula developed by MassBio which weighs seven occupations (listed by NAICS code) based on whether all or some professionals are likely to be working for biopharma employers. The seven NAICS codes employed are:
NAICS 3254: Pharmaceutical MFG, including biologics (100%)
NAICS 541711: Research and Development in Biotechnology (100%)
NAICS 541712: R&D in Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except biotech) (22%)
NAICS 334516: Analytical Laboratory Instrument MFG (30%)
NAICS 54138: Testing Laboratories (30%)
NAICS 622: Hospitals (4.5%)
NAICS 61131: Universities (1.9%)
Employment data for each NAICS code can be found for each state, metropolitan statistical area (MSA), or micropolitan statistical area in the U.S. Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns database, which is publicly available here.