Biotech Bizz: White Coats With Blue Collars
Biopharma industry is projected to add 2,100 jobs in Massachusetts
Pundits have all but thrown in the towel on the Massachusetts manufacturing industry.
Energy costs are too high, they say. They'll tell you that well-educated workers aren't going into manufacturing anymore. Taxes, and still more taxes, give other regions of the country, and the world, a serious leg up over Massachusetts, they moan.
But there's at least one sector of the state's manufacturing economy that has managed to buck the trend and create new, quality jobs over the past few years.
Biopharmaceutical, medicine and medical equipment and device manufacturing is expected to generate more than 2,100 new jobs between 2004 and 2014, according to a recent study of the overall effects of the biopharmaceutical industry on the state's economy conducted by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston on behalf of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America based in Washington, D.C.
It's a modest number, to be sure, but it's far better than the nearly 100,000 traditional manufacturing jobs lost in the state since 2001, according to another recent report from the Massachusetts Institute for a New Economy (MassINC) and the Northeastern research group.
Methodical Gains
By contrast, jobs in pharmaceutical preparation manufacturing increased by 115 between 2000 and 2005, according to the Northeastern report. Again, modest, but the five-year numbers don't take into account an exceptionally rough 2003 and 2004, when the same sector shed 1,845 jobs. That it has gained those jobs back, and then some, in the few years since is certainly noteworthy.
Between 2000 and 2005, employment in the surgical and medical instrument manufacturing industries fell by 2,840, or roughly 19 percent. Bad, but the overall manufacturing economy lost more than 25 percent of its employees during the same time frame.
The MassINC report found that Massachusetts ranks next to last in the country in terms of new job growth. Since being savaged by the bursting tech bubble and the 2001 recession, the state's total payroll employment is still behind its pre-2001 employment peak by 4 percent, trailing only Michigan.
Between 2000 and 2005, the state lost more than 100,000 jobs overall, according to Northeastern University, a decline of 3.5 percent.
During the same time period, biopharmaceutical research, development and manufacturing added more than 6,000 new jobs, a 12.5 percent increase, the study found.
Biopharmaceutical jobs in the state accounted for 1.8 percent of the total workforce in 2001. By 2005, that number stood at 2 percent, putting it fourth in the nation in terms of the number of biopharmaceutical jobs as a percentage of total payroll.
"Clearly," said the report's authors, "Massachusetts is a national leader in its ability to generate biopharmaceutical industry jobs."
The average pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing operation in the state in 2004 had more than seven times as many employees than an average private sector establishment, 122 to only 17, according to the Northeastern report.
Gov. Deval Patrick has earned his fair share of criticism in the past months as a man of grand proclamations that sometimes don't hold up to scrutiny. His casino proposal is mired in political and social deadlock, his clean energy act faces a funding crunch, and his $1 billion biotech initiative hasn't gone through as quickly as he would have liked.
But his intentions are good. Say what you will about the casino proposal, but Gov. Patrick is the first to say that it is about job creation, and not revenue. Whether or not you totally believe that is up to you. But it meshes well with his oft-repeated rhetoric to bring 100,000 new jobs to the state and (finally) right the ship after the 2001 recession.
It seems that a good source of those jobs lie in the already established biopharmaceutical manufacturing frontier. Do they make white lab coats with blue collars?
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