Inspired by this post by John Protevi, I decided to update an old post about biomedical sector jobs. When we last tuned in, jobs in this sector soared from nearly 54,000 in 2002 to 101,000 in 2008, and then declined to 95,220 in 2011.

Looking at the 2012 data, jobs have pretty much stayed constant over the year: 95,420 in 2012 versus 95,220 in 2011. Pretty much unchanged. What’s interesting is that the “Scientific Research and Development Services” component dropped over 3,000 jobs (nearly ten percent), while academia gained over 2,000 (a gain of over ten percent), with other sectors staying constant.

Probably worth noting that there’s a $30,000 salary gap between industry and academia. Once you adjust for inflation, across the entire sector, the median wage has stalled out.

Maybe open access isn’t the greatest problem we face right now?

(yes, it’s important, but you can’t publish very much if you don’t have a job).