In a recent BioSpace LinkedIn poll, nearly half of respondents predicted the job market won’t turn around until 2027 or later. It’s easy to see why people are skeptical, especially when you consider recent hiring activity and layoffs.
Biopharma professionals don’t have much hope for the biopharma job market turning around this year, based on a recent BioSpace LinkedIn poll. A whopping 74% of respondents predicted it won’t improve until 2026 or later, and 44% don’t expect a turnaround until at least 2027. It’s easy to understand the skepticism given that the positive signs people were looking for to spur hiring, including increased funding, haven’t materialized as layoffs continue.
Biopharma professional Pierre Michel Baez Ortiz is among those feeling pessimistic about the job market turning around anytime soon. In a poll comment, he noted that Maryland hasn’t recovered from the crash after the pandemic-era money infusion ran out.
“Over three years and the region is unstable as hell,” he wrote. “There’s zero job security and some people in my network have been unemployed for more than a year, a few for several years. And now we have more big companies leaving Montgomery County.”
If the industry recovers, he added, it wouldn’t be for maybe two more years.
Biopharma professional Ricardo Azedo took a more positive tone in the poll comments, writing, “I want to be hopeful, so I’d cast my vote to ‘as soon as possible.’”
That said, just 27% of voters predicted the job market will turn around by the end of this year.
Reasons for Skepticism Easy To Find
It’s not hard to spot what might be fueling people’s skepticism. In addition to factors such as venture capital funding dropping 20% year over year in the first quarter, massive Department of Health and Human Services layoffs and looming pharma tariffs, consider:
- Late last month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the number of job openings was little changed in March and dropped by 901,000 over the year.
- In April, job postings live on the BioSpace website were up just 1% month over month and down 8% year over year.
- Although the number of biopharma professionals laid off in April dropped 22% year over year, according to BioSpace tallies, the 1,357 people affected was the second-highest monthly total of 2025. (Note: Figures exclude contract development and manufacturing organizations, contract research organizations, tools and services businesses and medical device firms.)
In what’s sure to be unwelcome news, May’s layoffs have already surpassed April’s with Teva Pharmaceuticals cutting 2,893 employees worldwide. Add Bristol Myers Squibb’s layoffs of 516 people in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and you’re at about 3,400 people out of work between just two companies. That’s especially significant given that just over 4,000 biopharma employees were laid off over the entire first quarter.
Those layoff numbers likely wouldn’t surprise Ira Leiderman, healthcare managing director at investment banking firm Cassel Salpeter & Co. During an interview for a recent BioSpace article, he noted that companies are “leaning down.”
“People need to husband their cash, manage their expenditures, and unfortunately, it’s costing people their jobs and their livelihoods,” he said.
Leiderman doesn’t see hiring rising in the near term and theorized that mid-level and senior-level people could leave the country and head to Europe, leading to some brain drain. He also noted that biopharma professionals might change industries.
For those who need jobs now, and especially for those who’ve needed them for several months or longer, leaving the U.S. or biopharma itself to gain employment is understandable. As Leiderman said, “People have to pay their bills, right? They’ve got to make a mortgage payment. They’ve got to put food on the table for their kids. You’ve got to live the dream, but you’ve got to also be realistic at some point.”
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