Post-Gillette: Will the life sciences pick up the
slack?
EXCLUSIVE REPORTS
Boston Business Journal (Boston, MA)
February 4, 2005
By Mark Hollmer, Journal Staff
While the Boston region risks losing more than a
thousand jobs following the sale of the venerable
Gillette Co. to Procter & Gamble Co., the state’s
health care and life sciences sectors offer a partial
silver lining.
Some of the region’s major hospitals and biotechnology
companies plan to add or fill nearly 2,700 combined
jobs over the coming year, based on informal Boston
Business Journal estimates.
Some insiders say the net job growth will at least
lessen the pain generated by Gillette’s loss and the
region’s recent financial services consolidations,
revealing that health care and life sciences are
rising to the task.
“It is … a consciousness-raising event, that
presents … opportunities for all of us leaders in
the business community and leaders in the public arena
to become specifically focused on the opportunities
that present themselves in and around biotechnology,
specifically, and life sciences in general,” said
Thomas Finneran, the new president of the
Massachusetts Biotechnology Council and former
longtime House speaker.
Others point out that jobs gains in health and life
sciences, however welcome, don’t diminish the fact
that executives and employees of a consumer-products
company such as Gillette can’t necessarily transfer
their skills to the new sectors posting “help wanted”
signs.
“What happens to the 1,800 people in the (Gillette)
executive office? They’re probably not going to move
into positions created in health care/life sciences,”
said Richard Lord, president and CEO of Associated
Industries of Massachusetts.
With the New England Economic Project projecting the
creation of 43,000 jobs in Massachusetts through 2005,
many of those jobs could come from life sciences and
health care. However, many of those jobs will be
focused on research and development and won’t likely
lead to many local manufacturing jobs here, said
Noubar Afeyan, managing partner at Flagship Ventures
in Cambridge and a senior lecturer at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School
of Management.
Genzyme Corp. in Cambridge, which employs 4,990 people
in Massachusetts, said in December that it had 300
regional job openings and plans to fill between 300
and 500 new and vacant positions. The Novartis
Institutes for BioMedical Research Inc., which brought
900 jobs to Cambridge last year, plans to add about
200 more in 2005. Boston Scientific Corp. in Natick
employs 2,073 people in Massachusetts and added 384
people regionally in 2004. The medical device giant
plans to fill 183 positions here in 2005 and
potentially more, according to a spokesperson.
Even such smaller companies as Transkaryotic Therapies
Inc. in Cambridge, which employs 380 people, hired 60
people in 2004. TKT will hire 20 more through the
first part of this year as it focuses on gaining
regulatory approvals for two of its compounds.
AstraZeneca, which employs 1,203 people at its Waltham
research facility, also plans to hire locally this
year for sales, research and development and
operations positions.
Massachusetts General Hospital said in December it
would add 725 clinical care and research jobs to its
18,127-person work force in 2005. Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center said it plans to add 350
clinical care employees to its 6,700-person work
force, and Children’s Hospital Boston said it would
boost its 7,200-person staff over the next year by 250
people. Brigham and Women’s Hospital is aiming to fill
at least 120 vacant nursing positions alone.
Biopharmaceutical employment in Massachusetts reached
21,400 people in 2003 and will continue to grow as the
industry expands, according to the Milken Institute,
which recently compiled a report looking at
biopharmaceutical industry contributions domestically.
Health care employment in Massachusetts varies by
sector, but hospitals show the most growth. Hospitals
employed 156,100 people in December 2003, and the
number jumped by 1,500 by December 2004, according to
data from the state Division of Unemployment Career
Services.
Mark Hollmer can be reached at
[email protected]