Life Sciences on the Rise: 2021 North American Report

Cities and metropolitan areas that are attractive to life sciences companies are those that have the talent base that those companies need—a life sciences workforce that they can tap into. These individuals may or may not work at a biotechnology company. In fact, many scientists work at universities or other research-driven institutions such as hospitals. To understand the available pool of research talent, we identified 17 occupations that have skills that can be used in life sciences. (For a full list, see Appendix). We then summed up the number of people working in these occupations in each of the 14 U.S. life sciences markets in this report. The 14 markets were determined using employment, investment and grant money. As demonstrated, the number of workers in life sciences occupations has increased steadily over the last 20 years in the 14 life sciences markets. In 2001, there were about 175,000 people in life sciences occupations, and by 2020, that number had risen to nearly 258,000, an increase of 47.6%. In comparison, total U.S. employment has increased by only 7.7% over the same time period.

TOTAL NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN THE LIFE SCIENCES OCCUPATIONS IN THE 15 MARKETS

270

250

230

210

Thousands

190

170

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

2017

2019

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, EMSI

The markets with the largest combination of number of people in the talent pool and working in life sciences occupations are Boston, New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, New Jersey and Philadelphia markets. Combined, they account for about 63% of the life sciences talent in the 14 major hubs.

LIFE SCIENCES TOTAL EMPLOYMENT AND LABOR POOL BY MARKET (2020)

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

Number of Jobs (Thousands)

10

0

Source: EMSI

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