The MedZilla Report: March 2009 Employment Outlook for Biotech/Pha...( Companies fi...)

Companies fighting to stay on budget as the first quarter of 2009 came to a close were forced to announce layoffs, and the U.S. economic crisis impacted a field once thought immune to the troubles of the rest of the country as job creation for March contracted by 50 percent.

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) March 23, 2009 -- As the first quarter of 2009 came to a close in March, several companies announced layoffs, and while many were small, companies serving the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and health care industries all were affected. Even as 14,000 new health care jobs were created, the average job creation in the first quarter was only 17,000 per month, as opposed to 30,000 per month in 2008.

Generally, cuts in health care are being increased because more and more facilities are losing money. It is the smaller, specialty programs that are cut first -- such as youth residential centers -- but some companies, like Kaiser, have announced sweeping cuts of more than 800 jobs. Kaiser's situation is different in that they are eliminating their in-house information technology departments in favor of a new deal with IBM (Sacramento Business Journal, March 16, 2009). Other health systems, such as New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation, were forced to lay off workers as Medicaid payouts decreased. The month's largest job cuts by far, however, came from biotechnology as Hospira announced a plan to eliminate almost 1,500 jobs over the next two years. Roche is also expected to lose 500 employees as they close their Palo Alto, Calif., research facility, and will likely see more decline the offer to move to other facilities in San Francisco and New Jersey.
   
Now that more companies are announcing layoffs as they see how far short they have fallen compared to their budgets, employees in danger of being laid off -- either real or perceived -- have increased their job searc
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