C&EN: the biotech hiring market is still pretty OK

In this week's Chemical and Engineering News, this article on recent biotech layoffs (by Asher Mullard): 

The biotech sector has had a rocky 12 months, and signs of the strain are showing. Stocks have fallen, venture capital investments and company creation show signs of tapering off, and some companies are announcing layoffs.

But a red-hot biotech job market—fueled by the explosive expansion of the sector over the past 5 years—offsets some of the gloom and doom. “I can’t remember a period that’s been this busy,” says biotech recruiter Chris Clancy, associate vice president at HireMinds in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “We’re not seeing signs of slowing on the hiring front.”

...“It’s pretty evident that we’re starting to see some trimdowns,” Clancy, the recruiter, says, and more layoffs are likely coming. But the sector has attracted so much money in recent years that venture capitalists remain hungry for start-ups, and companies are ravenous for talent. “The train just keeps rolling,” he says.

It will be interesting to follow this. I don't think Mr. Clancy is too far off the mark (i.e. seems to me that hiring is continuing apace), but I suspect (as I have said in the past) that fall 2022 will not be as hot as fall 2021.