Many of you heard the news about Bayer AG's layoffs last week (article via Bloomberg):
Bayer AG plans to cut 12,000 jobs and exit its animal health business in an effort to mollify Wall Street, which has punished the company over the tidal wave of lawsuits that came alongside the $63 billion takeover of Monsanto Co.
...Of the 12,000 job cuts, half will probably come from corporate and supporting functions while another third will be in crop science as the Monsanto integration proceeds, Bayer said. Another 1,250 positions will probably come from pharmaceuticals -- with 350 related to a new facility in Wuppertal, Germany. Another 1,100 will be cut in Bayer’s consumer health division. Baumann repeatedly declined to say how many of the reductions would be in Germany overall....
Also, there was this news last week from Chemical and Engineering News (article by Alex Scott)
BASF has unveiled a company-wide reorganization in a bid to hike profits by $2.3 billion annually by 2021, the equivalent of increasing pretax profits by between 3 and 5% per year. The firm also aims to increase annual sales of products it claims make a substantial contribution to sustainability to $25 billion by 2025...
...As part of its restructuring, the firm aims to enhance efficiencies in production, logistics, and R&D. This will include moving some of the firm’s centralized R&D activities into business units. Other planned changes include the wider use of digitization and automation. The firm will invest about $460 million annually on efficiency improvements—significantly more than it has spent in previous years.
The restructuring will impact about 20,000 of the firm’s 115,000 employees, but BASF will not necessarily cut jobs, according to Brudermüller. Although efficiency improvements will be needed, more staff will be required to implement the planned growth of the business, Brudermüller said.I feel like 2015 through 2018 were pretty good years for hiring in pharma, certainly something close to a local maxima. Here's hoping that 2019 brings good news rather than bad. Readers, what do you think?
2017-2018 seemed very similar to 2006-2007 in terms of the number of responses that I would get when applying for jobs. So I would say that the market is about as good as pre-crash, which was an ok job market, not great. For BS/MS candidates with 1-10 years experience it doesn't seem very hard to get a job as long as you're willing to relocate. I imagine 2019 will be similar to 2018, maybe a bit worse.
ReplyDeleteGM, Ford, Sharp...I think the wheels are starting to come off.
ReplyDeleteSharp cutbacks at SUNY Stony Brook, too. Sky's falling!
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