The pharmaceutical industry’s employment growth rate was far higher than overall industrial average over the past decade, according to a recent analysis. Especially high were the shares of full-time workers and youth employment increase rate.

According to the data collected by Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association(KPBMA)_{한국바이오제약협회} (chairman Won Hee-mok_원희목), the job growth rate of the entire industry over the past decade (2005-2015) stood at 2.6 percent on the annual average. On the other hand, the comparable figure for the medicine manufacturing sector was 3.9 percent, higher than the all-industry rate and about 2.4 times greater than the 1.6 percent growth for the entire manufacturing business.

The pharmaceutical industry has increased employment every year except for 2010 and 2011. While the entire manufacturing industry hired one person per output of 450 million won ($395,000), the pharmaceutical sector recruited one worker per 180 million won.

Notably, drugmakers showed the highest share of youth employment increase of all industries, another report said.

Source: Korea Employment Information Service (KEIS)

Korea Employment Information Service (KEIS)_{고용정보원} has analyzed companies that have increased youth employment from 2009 to 2014. According to its result, the rate of the pharmaceutical industry was 45.5 percent, meaning 4.5 out of 10 drugmakers increased youth jobs. That far surpassed the comparable shares of 27.6 percent recorded by manufacturing industry, and 23.4 percent by all industries. Air transport and research and development business followed pharmaceuticals’ lead, with 40 percent and 36.8 percent, respectively.

The rate of full-time jobs was also high in the pharmaceutical industry. According to data at Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA)_{한국보건사회연구원} and Statistics Korea_통계청, nine out of 10 people working in the pharmaceutical industry had full-time jobs. The rate of full-time regular workers in the medicine manufacturing industry was 91.4 percent in 2015, way above the 67.5 percent for the entire industry, and higher than 86.3 percent for the manufacturing sector.

The recruitment of experts with masters and doctoral degrees was also more than twice higher than the manufacturing industry average.

Research jobs in the pharmaceutical sector totaled 11,862 in number last year, an increase of about 3,000 from 8,765 in 2011. About 800 such jobs increased in 2016 alone.

Also noticeable was the inflow of professional workforce with M/A or Ph. D. degrees. According to the “Survey on R&D activities” released by Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)_{한국과학기술기획평가원} in 2014, the share of researchers with master's and doctoral degrees in the drugmaking sector was 71.7 percent, more than twice higher than the 33.7 percent for the whole industry, let alone the manufacturing industry average of 32.5 percent.

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