Latest / BioSpace / Bonus: Q2 2026 Job Market Update
Transcript
- Jef: Hello and welcome to a special episode of the weekly. ⁓ Biospace just published our second quarter job market report this week in Career Insider. It's our weekly newsletter that goes out on Thursdays. It's free. So if you're not already signed up, definitely subscribe now and you'll automatically get a copy of the new report. So instead of the usual crew today I'm joined by the report's author, Biospace's Life Science Careers content manager, Angela Gabriel. Angela, thanks for joining me. Angela Gabriel: Yeah, thanks for having me. Jef: So talk us through what happened in the biopharma job market during the second quarter of twenty twenty six. Angela Gabriel: Yeah, so what we saw was it is still an employer's market, but we we did see some encouraging signs for job seekers in the second quarter. the biggest one we saw based on our own biospace data was that during Q two, the job postings live on the website went up fifteen percent year over year and then twelve percent quarter over quarter. And what was really great to see was that that third that was a third straight quarter over quarter increase that we had. We also looked at pharma positions specifically, and we had at least 5,000 pharma positions live during every single month of Q two, and that was the first time that that's happened since Q one of 2024. The last kind of key finding that we were looking at was that last month, biotech RD jobs live on the website, they surged 42% year over year and they increased month over month for the sixth consecutive time. So the other thing we were kind of curious about was, well, how competitive of a job market is it? And it's definitely still like an employer's market, a competitive job market. But there was a little bit less competition for the biopharma jobs on our website in the second quarter. During Q one, Biospace received an average of about five applications per job posting, but in Q two, that number dipped just slightly down to four point four. Jef: We'll take the little bits of good news when we've got them. That is a little less competition. Hopefully some people out there can start to find jobs. are these are is there any other job market news that might interest folks listening to this podcast right now? Angela Gabriel: That's a while. Yeah. Yeah, there were some other little tidbits that didn't actually get into our job market report that I still found pretty interesting. In May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted 5.4% employment growth in pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing from 2024 to 2034. And that sector is projected to employ 369,500 people by 2034. And that would make pharma the eighth fastest growing area of US manufacturing. Also in May, the Bureau reported a state by breakdown of May unemployment numbers and it showed that California and Massachusetts, which of course are top states for biopharma employers, ⁓ they each had higher unemployment rates than the US which was four point three percent. So California actually had the second highest unemployment rate of any state at five point three percent. And then Massachusetts was 4.5%. And then in some other news that was specific to employment in both of those states, two reports that were released in the second quarter, they showed that life sciences jobs in those states actually stopped growing last year and even had small declines. So a California life sciences sector report showed that while life sciences employment in California had been increasing year over year, in 2025 there was a 1.8% decrease. And then a Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation report showed that employment in Massachusetts dipped one percent in twenty twenty five. So it'll be interesting moving forward to see if this is kind of the start of a trend for both of those states, given they are the biggest locations for biopharma employers. Jef: Yeah, very interesting. then of course another factor here, not in industry, but we've got the FDA, which is very closely related in government. You know, I was just at Bio at the convention in San Diego last month, and we learned that the FDA is now working on hiring about twenty two hundred people. That's more than two thirds of the three thousand they lost last year with some of those doge cuts and early retirement incentive plans. So I if that will affect those out there searching for jobs. Angela Gabriel: curious too if that might mean less competition for jobs biopharma companies moving forward, because you have to wonder if those people who were displaced by what was happening at the FDA, if they were looking at those kind of private sector companies. ⁓ Jef: Yeah, exactly. All right. Well we can't chop up talk about the job market without talking about layoffs, so what's going on there? Angela Gabriel: Yeah, so during the second quarter, we actually saw some year over year improvement. We had twenty-six biopharmas either letting go or projecting they're going to let go of eight thousand three hundred and eighty-three employees. And that's down from Q2 2025, we had sixty-four companies planning to cut eight thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine people. Breaking that down a little bit more, that represents a fifty-nine percent drop in the biopharmers who are making or planning layoffs, and then a five percent dip in the number of people affected. Now, unfortunately, results were a little bit Little bit more mixed if we were comparing the first two quarters of 2026. So we had more people impacted in the second quarter than we did in the first, 8,383 versus 6,653. But fewer companies were driving those layoffs. It was 26 companies instead of 36. May was actually the worst month for layoffs, not just second quarter, but just throughout the whole year so far. Cuts hit nearly 7,000 employees, and that was due mostly to two companies' workforce reductions. The largest layoffs, those are from Takeda. They're gonna wipe out about four thousand five hundred employees in fiscal year twenty twenty six. And then BioNTech announced that a few manufacturing facility closures by the end of twenty twenty seven will eliminate about one thousand eight hundred and sixty jobs. Jef: Yeah, those major reorganizations and cuts definitely drive up those numbers. We just did a story on how many pharma really undertaking these mass restructurings right now and really messing with the workforce. So it's hard to take too much away from those direct numbers, but overall it seemed relatively positive that the there are fewer companies initiating layoffs. That's good. when we're talking about overall industry health, which is of course important to jobs and job seekers, you know, we've been talking a lot about the strong MA and IPO activity of late. So that that could possibly be a positive here. Angela Gabriel: Yeah. So there were 52 mergers and acquisitions in the first half of 2026 compared to about 30 in the first half of 2025, according to biospace tallies. And of those fifty-two deals, thirty-one were actually announced in the second quarter. And then for IPOs, there were eighteen IPOs in the first half of the year, including seven in Q two, according to our tallies. Two of those IPOs by Chilera Therapeutics and Parabolis Medicines set records as the biggest biotech debuts ever. With six hundred and twenty five million and six hundred and seventy million dollar raises, and those actually happen less than two months apart. Jef: I loved when that happened. We were all excited that Kyler broke Moderna's older record. And then, yeah, like you said, not two months later, Parabola swoops in and was like, wait, we can raise more. So definitely positive momentum in the public markets. let's see, moving on. How do you think that ⁓ bio biopharma job seekers felt about the job market during the second? Angela Gabriel: Yeah, they didn't seem super optimistic that it's gonna turn around in the next few months. I know we we put out a LinkedIn poll in June, that showed that 77% of respondents they don't really see a change happening until 2027 or later. ⁓ don't see any kind of movement happening until or after 2028. I also think there's a lot of frustration probably out there for some people with how long it's taken to find a job. We had a another LinkedIn poll that we did in May. That found that 53% of respondents who are out there job hunting right now said they've been at it for at least six months, and then 27% have been doing it for at least one year. So given both of those findings, I don't think it's too surprising. We saw in another LinkedIn poll in May that 52% of respondents, they've actually recently taken biopharma jobs that they're technically overqualified for, and that's up from 44% in March of 2025. And I think that speaks to just how challenging the job market still is this year. Jef: Yeah, it's gotta be really hard out there. So I I can understand that sentiment, especially from those that are kind of in the thick of the job search. What do you think is gonna happen with the job market over the rest of the year? Angela Gabriel: I mean, both the year over year and the quarter over quarter increases in job postings live on biospace, those are encouraging signs that I hope mean that we're gonna see more job opportunities in Q three, but still there hasn't been a significant year over year decline in the number of people affected by layoffs. And that means of course we still have a lot of people who are either newly out of work or they're gonna be out of work in the next year or two because some companies cuts take place over a multi-year period. So I think competition for jobs that are out there are probably going to remain high for the time being. Jef: All right, well, not quite as positive as I think we all want to hear, but you know, I'll take the little ones when we can get them and we'll of course keep tracking it. Thank you so much for joining us, Angela, and for all of you out there who haven't received the job market report yet, don't forget to subscribe to Career Insider. Angela Gabriel: Thanks, Jeff.