Wanted: Scientists, Any Scientist…Please!
7 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // March 30th, 2007 // 6:50 am
Biotech companies just can’t find enough of them. A couple of the biggest companies bemoan their inability to hire in sufficient numbers and note that, by purchasing smaller companies, they not only get desirable compounds, but pick up researchers with hard-to-find expertise.
“We’re hiring as many good people as we can out there, but there’s not an infinite number of terrific people,” says Art Levinson, Genentech’s ceo. “We obsess about this.” Adds John Milligan, Gilead’s coo: “It’s hard to find enough people to grow the way we want.”
Certainly, there’s opportunity. The average biotech job pays $65,775 a year, compared with $39,003 in the private sector; some 1.2 million people worked in US biotech in 2004, in agriculture, pharma, med devices and labs; and biotech generated $51 billion in US sales in 2005, creating 40,000 jobs from 2001 to 2004.
The problem isn’t new, nor are the implications. The inability to find qualified scientists suggests an inability to make significant discoveries. Many companies provide grants to universities. Maybe more money should devoted to education. Where would that come from in these revenue-challenged times? How about executive comp or promotional budgets?
(One reader writes in that companies are too cheap and there would be more scientists if salaries were higher. What do you think? See comments below).
Read more at Bloomberg News.[tags]Genentech, Gilead Sciences, Jobs[/tags]
A Scientist
Nonsense. As usual, this should read that these folks want more scientists *at a cheaper rate*. Compare your average salary listed above to the average for folks with an MD, JD, or MBA. A scientist label is usually reserved for someone with a PhD which right now takes on average 7.8 years according to the American Society for Cell Biology. So someone could gain an MD/JD/MBA in *much* less time and earn more than they would as a scientist with a PhD. (Note that this also ignores the implicit postdoc requirement in addition to the PhD required for most scientist positions.) Until this imbalance is corrected then any argument for a shortage is contradicted by the reality of the labor market.
ed
Hello Scientist.
Thanks for writing. And that’s a good point you make. No matter how many intelligent and educated people are attracted to the sciences, you’re likely to attract still more with higher pay, at least stock options. (Although it is sad, isn’t it, when one hears about doctors who pursued medicine mostly for the money).
In your view, is money the only issue? What about workloads and hours? The nature of the work? I’m curious to hear more.
cheers
ed
A Scientist
ed,
In my view, the issue of how compensation is allocated (salary/benefits/vacation etc.) is secondary to the compensation itself. In other words, sure, most folks are willing to accept lower salaries for shorter work hours, more vacation etc. There is always a tradeoff between these factors in any compensation discussion. But the other factors are much less tangible and therefore more difficult to use for meta-comparisons. Bottom line, if there is work to be done there is an amount of money that will convince people to put up with the conditions – however bad they may be. If you make the conditions better, than folks will accept less money to do the job. At some point I suppose that one could make the conditions so nice that a worker would actually pay to go to work. I believe that we call this leisure.
So I guess that I’m saying that salary is one of the best metrics available for these discussions. And if one uses this metric in the market for scientists one sees that there is currently no shortage of scientists. Salaries are not appreciating and indeed remain below their peer group.
My personal experience confirms this. Bioscience PhD degree times have been floating higher for a decade or two, most likely due to a lack of demand in the marketplace for new graduates. Time spent in postdoc has increased as well. I have seen more than a few of these poor souls returning to yet another year while they build their resume for another run at job hunting. Established scientists find fierce competition for every opening.
Additionally, the doubling of the NIH budget around the turn of the century no doubt caused a substantial increase in graduate class size at most institutions. So the job market is already primed to see a substantial increase in new entrants as these folks exit graduate school and get a few years of postdoc under their belt. (The doubling initiative began in 1999 I believe, so if one assumes a ~7+ year degree period then these folks should be hitting the market this year.)
In my opinion, the way we fund the labor pool is what is creating the imbalance. We create a vast pool of PhD scientists in this country without regard for their future career prospects. Inevitably, these folks struggle and those that do gain employment do so at lower rates than they would have received with a different degree. This, in turn, dampens interest from domestic undergraduates in the profession. Graduate schools continue to receive grant money, however, so they turn to foreign students to fill the slots. These foreign students either remain in the U.S. labor pool, adding to the glut, or return home to compete against the “national interests” that the original grant money was intended to nurture.
We’ve been told of a looming scientist shortage since at least the 1980’s, and it has yet to happen. If scientist salaries were increasing at a few percentage points above the overall education adjusted labor average I would agree that a shortage is upon us. But salaries are not increasing. And yes, work hours are long and vacation time low. All the signs of an oversupply of labor. And given the recent NIH budget increases, I’m not inclined to believe that we’ll see a shortage anytime soon.
I’ve always been at a loss to explain the claims of a labor shortage from corporate heads like those at Genentech and Gilead. I’ve seen arguments that while a glut of scientists *does* exist, there is a lack of those with the ‘right skills’. But this makes little sense to me, as it is fairly common for large organizations like those above to offer much in the way of on the job training. So even if a new scientist hire is ignorant of the exact technique you’re using, it’s not that much effort to train them – particularly when one considers that these individuals are among the most highly trained in the world. The technology sector offers a good comparison here. When the dot com boom lead to a lack of network and process engineers many companies like Cisco and Intel hired engineers lacking those exact qualifications and trained them on the job. It’s worth noting that in spite of this, salaries for these in-demand skills skyrocketed during this period.
Final note. See more from the American Society for Cell Biology. Their report “Careers and Rewards in Bio Sciences: The Disconnect Between Scientific Progress and Career Progression” is aging, but still applicable. http://www.ascb.org/index.cfm?navid=6&id=1858&tcode=nws3
ed
Hi Sci,
Everything you say makes sense.
Two things - the link leads me to the article, which found that industrial employment was rising, although that was in 2003.
The other thing is a stupid ‘ed’ question - if it’s known that salaries aren’t as high as, say, gastroenterology and academic spots are harder to come by, why does anyone walk down this path?
ed
A Scientist
Ed,
I would bet that overall industrial employment is still rising. Obviously employment statistics have natural peaks and valleys due to seasonality etc, but there’s little argument that biotech / pharma is a growing sector in the U.S. along with everything else healthcare. The thing is, scientist supply is totally uncoupled from demand in this market. As long as the academic science establishment successfully lobbies congress for increased NIH funding the number of scientists will grow.
Why does any domestic student go into science? There is no good single answer for that as everyone has a different reason. Some simply love science to the exclusion of everything else. On the other hand, a lot of students start out studying biology as undergrads only to later find that their BS degree offers them little opportunity in the job market upon graduation. (Industry tech positions offer modest pay on par with primary education and little room for advancement as one must have a PhD for most ‘scientist’ positions.) In theory, they could then re-enter graduate school choosing between a PhD and an MD, but in practice, the AAMC has restricted medical school admissions so much that medical school is only an option for a very select few students. (This guarantees full employment and a high salary for those that do make it in.) PhD spots are generally less competitive, and most of them offer free tuition, a modest stipend, and health insurance along with the promise of scientific glory. In some cases, this is enough.
A Scientist
In thinking about my last comment, I realized that I neglected to list one other reason folks go into science - either in industry or on the academic side:
Good jobs. They do exist. For those that have them, the pay is good and the work is rewarding. What we do saves lives. And that is a good feeling.
But to wrap this into the above, good feelings don’t put food on the table. So while the scientist job market is okay for some of us, the facts don’t support a lack of available labor as claimed by the individuals in the original article.
ed
Hi Sci,
In the end, I would think you’re correct - there is an available labor pool.
One thing that struck me in reading your last note is that there are some similarities between what scientists and journalists cite as motivation. Of course, the landscape for journalists is quite different and changing rapidly.
In any event, here’s another thing they have in common - they don’t need a license to practice. One does need that slip of paper to enter medicine. In any event, journalists don’t need a PhD either.
I’d love to hear more on this topic. Please point out other pertinent items when you come across them. I intend to follow employment matters at pharma and biotech, and all insights are always welcome.
Cheers
ed