Biosciences: Where The Jobs Are

As the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform understands, smart spending is beneficial and will ultimately jumpstart the economy. Investment in R&D actually creates well-paying jobs in a time of record unemployment, thus strengthening the economy.

• In 2008, the first year of the recession, the bioscience industry was able to support a 1.4% growth in employment while total private sector employment fell by 0.7 percent.
  

• There are over 1.3 million Americans employed in the bioscience sector, where jobs pay about $22,000 more than average private sector wages.
  

• Earnings for workers in the bioscience sector have increased by 10.1 percent since 2001, whereas earnings for private sector employees have increased by only 3.2 percent in the same time period.

The biosciences have an even larger impact outside of their own industry.

• For every new job in the biosciences, another 5.8 jobs are created, employing even more Americans.
  

• Funding R&D boosts business activity: Every dollar invested by the NIH - a large funder of medical research in the US - generates more than 2 dollars in state economic output, for a total of over $50 billion in new business activity generated in the US in 2007.

The money invested in research creates well-paying jobs and circulates through the economy, benefiting communities, states and the country. This is true for the nation as whole as well as individual states. Check out the next post in this series to understand the impact on states.


This is Part 2 of 4 in our Economic Impact of R&D series.
Part 1 - Economic Impact of Research & Development
Part 2 - Biosciences: Where the Jobs Are
Part 3 - Economic Impact of R&D Ranked by State
Part 4 - Show Me the Money