New Jersey Jobs in Bioscience Remain Strong

The outlook for New Jersey jobs in bioscience remains positive. Currently, the state is one of the top five areas for biotechnology in the world. Over the last ten years, the number of employers who specialize in this sort of work have almost tripled.

At this time, more than 10 percent of the country's employment in drugs and pharmaceuticals is in New Jersey. In addition to this, the state also has over 5 percent of all of the nation’s research, testing and medical laboratories, medical devices and equipment subsectors.

The state continues to benefits from the presence of the numerous high paying jobs associated with bioscience. Because of the strength of this area of employment, a large portion of New Jersey's workforce is considered more educated than is the national average.

As far as venture capital invested and patents issued during the course of the last six years goes, the state is fourth in the country. Altogether, $2.78 billion in venture capital was invested in New Jersey by bioscience employers who are attracted to the area, at least in part, by the high presence of skilled employees.

At a recent conference discussing the industry and furthering it's influence in the state, Debbie Hart, president of BioNJ said that, "[W]henever we can foster good, high-paying jobs, stimulate research opportunities within our academic institutions and be a part of the solution for addressing the health concerns for our citizens --I know we are doing our job. Working together -- we all can win."

While many other industries are downscaling the number of jobs they provide, bioscience employment remains relatively steady.

Wall Street Issues Effect New Jersey Jobs

Although New Jersey jobs will be lost due to the most recent problems on Wall Street, officials expect that the state’s economy will fair better than many others. According to Governor Jon Corzine, a third of New Jersey’s economy is dependent on Wall Street either directly or indirectly, but others believe the employment situation is somewhat more stable.

“I’m worried about the state budget, the state economy in the context of the very dramatic restructuring that is taking place on Wall Street,” Corzine said at an appearance in Ewing Township. “The northern half of the state, there are many, many people who are involved with that industry. That’s one of the reasons you have high level of income in the state.”

With 1,700 New Jersey residents employed by Lehman Brothers and an unknown number working for Merrill Lynch, state Treasurer David Rousseau said that the economy will take a hit. Despite this, he believes that New Jersey’s diversified assets will protect the state from being hurt too badly.

“We have exposure to every sector; when financial stocks suffer the most severe shocks in decades, we will lose market value in that sector,” said Rousseau. “While we owned a small position in Lehman Brothers, we note as well that New Jersey, unlike most peers, completely avoided exposure to market losses because we did not own any Freddie or Fannie common stock when they were seized by the U.S. Treasury.”

Fewer New Jersey jobs isn’t the only problem that may arise from Wall Street’s latest problem. Joseph Seneca, who is an economics professor at Rutgers University, says that the merger of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers bankruptcy could also cause more credit issues, which would in turn make it more difficult for companies and individuals to borrow money.

New Jersey Jobs

New Jersey's unemployment rate remained below the national average of 5.7 percent in July, despite rising .1 percent to 5.4 percent. According to the state's Labor and workforce Development Department, employment figures remained basically unchanged. Only 200 New Jersey jobs were lost during the month between both the private and public sectors.

David J. Socolow, the state's Labor Commissioner, says that New Jersey's situations is only a reflection of what the rest of the nation is going through.

"During the first seven months of 2008, New Jersey's total nonfarm employment declined by a total of 14,100 jobs, or .35 percent, while the nation lost 463,000 jobs, or .34 percent, over the same period," said Socolow.

Jobs in financial activities decreased by 1,300 positions, while the leisure and hospitality industry did away with 1,100 jobs. During the same time, employers in the professional and business services sector created 3,100 new positions.

June's employment figures were also revised during the month of July to reflect the loss of an additional 200 jobs. Overall, the state lost 3,900 positions in that 30 day period.

Unemployment figures for the state can often be conflicting due to the fact that data is collected from several different sources. Adding to the difficulties of correctly figuring out New Jersey's job statistics is the fact that the percentage of the population that have jobs includes those that work outside the state, while the number of jobs considered only include positions listed in payroll data from companies with in New Jersey's state line.

The job situation in New Jersey may soon improve. According to the most recent Monster.com Job Index found that there was an increase in the number of positions posted by employers online during August. Out of 20 different industries, 14 showed signs of recovering as jobs increased.

"Employers are now stepping up their online recruitment efforts in preparation for the fall hiring season but activity in the job market remains muted compared to a year ago," said Jesse Harriott, a vice president at Monster in a recent press release.

Future of New Jersey Jobs with Pharmaceutical Company Unsure

Yet another pharmaceutical company has recently announced that it will be leaving the Garden state. Roche has decided to relocate to the Bay Area in California and will be closing it’s facility located in Nutley. The company did not say how many New Jersey jobs will be lost when it leaves, but currently employees 374 people in the area.

“It is a reminder that the competition most important to New Jersey is not that with New York and Pennsylvania, but that this is a global competition for pharmaceutical jobs and investments,” said Daniel Levine, who is the former assistant state treasure in the Jim McGreevey and Richard Codey gubernatorial administrations.

Levine believes that New Jersey’s greatest competition for high-end pharmaceutical jobs in the U.S. is coming from California, Massachusetts and Maryland. “None of these states are low-cost places to operate, so the types of roles they tend to attract are in high-end R&D, executive management and other high-paying professional positions,” he explained. Levine is currently an executive at ADP, Inc, a Roseland business services company.

To make matters worse, there has been a growing percentage of clinical trials and pharmaceutical contract research and manufacturing operations outsourced to various overseas locations. In addition to this, half of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. are subsidiaries of European owned companies. Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, sanofi-aventis and AstraZeneca are all in this group.

Roche’s decision its headquarters to San Francisco was announced at the same time as the company’s plans to purchase the remainder of Genentech Inc. James Hughes, who is the dean of Rutgers University’s Edward Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy in New Brunswick, says that Roche already owns 56 percent of Genentech and are planning to take it over because they view its research as the future of the company. Despite the move, Roche plans to continue to grow its research and development operations in New Jersey.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine reacted positively to this news, saying that in exchange for losing administrative jobs to California, New Jersey will receive more research and development positions. “It is clearly a recognition of New Jersey’s status as the medicine chest to the nation and the top-notch work force that is available in the state.”

Senator Joseph Kyrillos was less than happy about Roche’s decision. He has called upon the governor to schedule a special session this summer devoted to considering a package of economic and stimulus bills. In a recent statement Kyrillos said that New Jersey “must have a world-class economic development strategy, or risk losing high-pay businesses such as Roche.”

During the first half of this year, New Jersey pharmaceutical companies have done away with 1,375 jobs, according to notices filed with the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development. According to Hughes, the state’s share of the industry has dropped from 20.2 percent in 1990 to 13.7 percent last year.