Migration patterns within the United States and Canada

An interesting graph of moving patterns within the United States and Canada from a not-very-scientific sampling of customers of Atlas Van Lines, via Felix Salmon. (Red = balanced in-migration and out-migration, Yellow = net outmigration for 2011, Blue = net in-migration)

In 2011, I moved from an outbound state to a balanced state. Interesting how a lot of the pharma states (NJ, CT, MA) are net outbound. Also interesting how North Dakota is a net inbound state (Bakken Shale?), while Minnesota is a net outbound. I'm curious as to where North Dakota's new residents are coming from.

UPDATE: Anon0829a and @azmanam both point to this fascinating migration map. Apropos of nothing, here's Champaign County, IL. 

Where are the chemists? An interesting map

I'm a big fan of county-level maps of the US, so I'm especially fond of BLS' different maps of chemist statistics across the US. This is a map of the highest concentrations of chemists. While most of the dark green areas correspond to major metropolitan areas, some of them correspond to the remarkably low population density of the rural United States (I'm looking at you, Kennewick-Pasco-Richland.)

Highest concentrations of chemists (Area, number of chemists / chemists per thousand jobs)

1. Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, WA: 590 / 6.17
2. Wilmington, DE-MD-NJ Metropolitan Division: 1,920 / 6.11
3. College Station-Bryan, TX: 450 / 4.90
4. Durham, NC: 1,010 /3.78
5. Bethesda-Frederick-Gaithersburg, MD Metropolitan Division: 1,670 / 3.02
6. Pine Bluff, AR: 100 / 3.02
7. Boulder, CO: 450 / 2.94
8. Framingham, MA NECTA Division: 390 / 2.55
9. Columbia, MO:  200 / 2.47
10. Newark-Union, NJ-PA Metropolitan Division: 2,300 / 2.42

Never ceases to amaze, the ability of a nearby university or government facility (looking at you, Pine Bluff) to skew statistics in interesting ways. 

Chart of the week: chemical employment over the last ten years

Table credit: Chemical and Engineering News

From this week's issue of C&EN comes the employment facts and figures. It is worth pondering that, excepting pharmaceuticals, every single other sector of the industrial chemistry world  has lost workers over the last ten years.

It is interesting to note that with all the sturm und drang of the pharma world (mergers, layoffs and the like), the industry has seen a 0.1% increase in employment over the last 10 years. I would pay serious money to know what a similar chart for pharma research chemists would be like.

Happy Tuesday (sort of.) 

R&D productivity on the decline?

Source: Matthew Herper 

If this graph is accurate, this is bad news for pharma scientists scientific labor in the US.

I invite readers to speculate as to why the relevant unit (NMEs per billion spent (inflation adjusted)) may be troublesome. Otherwise, you'll find me in the corner hyperventilating, just a little. 

Chart of the week: manufacturing is lagging

To make a long story short, BLS' Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey suggests that manufacturing is the  sector that is moving the least (next to government, that is, which is shrinking these days.) Oh, dear. 

Chart of the week: the tyranny of the negative slope in jobs

From the Washington Post, a breakout of job losses and gains for the Great Recession, graphically represented below:

Note: BLS manufacturing statistics for the chemicals subsector does include the pharma manufacturing as well. 

Chart of the week: where did the jobs go? Not in the US, that's for sure.

Chart credit: David Wessel, Wall Street Journal

From an astute reader, the chart of the week: since 2000 until 2009, major United States-based multinational corporations eliminated 2.9 million jobs in the United States. During that same time, they've added 2.4 million jobs overseas.

I doubt that pharmaceutical and chemical companies are responsible for that much of the gap between the two categories. That being said, I can't imagine that they have not contributed at all.

Gee, I hope this works out well for all of us. 

Chart of the week: a decade's worth of layoffs in Big Pharma

Yesterday, Derek Lowe linked to Matthew Herper's posting of Challenger, Gray and Christmas' listings of ten years of pharmaceutical industry layoffs. I've done the tabulation here.

The chart speaks for itself; Derek notes that he was part of the numbers in 2006. I'll note that for each of the above years after and including 2006, I believe I can name someone I know who was laid off. (Big surprise, really.) A historical (and unfair and possibly inappropriate) comparison: the Battle of Antietam had 23,000 casualties. Operation Overlord is listed with 14,000 to 19,000 casualties (for both sides).

Unfortunately, the numbers don't do a breakdown between R&D and sales forces, etc. But I suspect that it was in 2007 that the site-wide closures (here's looking at you, Ann Arbor) that started really hammering chemistry employment. Of course, there is also churn where people are laid off and immediately rehired elsewhere; this series of comments by Rick puts together a nice summary of that activity.

Best wishes to all of us.

Chart of the week: The housing market and the labor mobility of chemists

It's not talked about a lot, but I'll bet there were a lot of pharma/biotech chemists affected by the housing market. Here's the latest Case-Shiller measurement of various housing markets across the country, courtesy of the Calculated Risk blog:

Chart credit: Calculated Risk.

You'll note, of course, that 3 of the 5 (?) major pharma/biotech hubs (SF, SD and Boston) have sustained fairly drastic hits to their prices: 38%, 37% and 15% drops (respectively.)

It seems obvious to me that there are a significant (but unmeasured!) number of scientists who are underwater on their homes and cannot participate in the national labor market. Granted, they might not want to move, but unless their new company in Boston can help them out, a Bay Area chemist might just choose to stay a Bay Area chemist.

It also seems obvious to me that this is bad: labor mobility is one of the great attributes of the American economy. If the government wanted to do something useful, aiding people who want to get out from under their home and move somewhere else for a job would seem like a good start.*

*Look, I know this is going to help out some people who were stupid with their money, but that's the price of getting things going again.