Massachusetts' life sciences industry grew by more than 7,000 jobs last year, outpacing competitor states even as the so-called "Covid boom" began to wane. That's according to the latest "Industry Snapshot" report put out by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, the trade group better known as MassBio, which examines trends in workforce, real estate, funding and policy on an annual basis. As of 2022, Massachusetts had a total of 113,994 employees, up from 106,679 in 2021. Of those, 64,195 were R&D employees — an 8.5% increase from 2021 — and 10,493 were biomanufacturing employees, up 6.3% from the year prior, although biomanufacturing job growth over the long term has been much slower than it has been for R&D positions. The rate of growth for R&D jobs was second only to North Carolina. For biomanufacturing jobs, only Florida bested Massachusetts. The state's life sciences workforce is projected to keep growing like this, despite ongoing layoffs that have roiled the industry, costing some 2,200 local workers their jobs in the first half of this year, based on Business Journal research. "Anecdotally, I'm still continuing to see good growth of companies, and there's — I think — over 17,000 job postings for Massachusetts-headquartered life sciences companies in the first half of this year," said MassBio CEO Kendalle Burlin O'Connell. "Company creation is still happening. Hiring is still happening." So what keeps Burlin O'Connell up at night? Her largest battles, it turns out, are not specific to the life sciences industry — but they do have a direct effect on retaining employees in the state.
