The E.U.'s Blue Cards for Talent

One of the biggest complaints of Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies that I hear as a Recruiter is the shortage of talent in the marketplace. And, at this moment, it appears that the pool of available talent in the U.S. will only get smaller.
One of the main reasons for this shortage is the current attitude towards immigration in the U.S. America, the land of immigrants, has become decidedly anti-immigrant. While there is valid concern over the influx of illegal immigrants, especially in the Southwest, there has been a tendency to lump all immigrants under one big umbrella. Unfortunately, highly educated immigrants who come to the U.S., who attend our universities and get advanced degrees in the Sciences and Engineering, are finding it increasingly difficult to stay in the U.S. And due to the current rules regarding 'Green Cards' etc., Companies are finding it increasingly hard to hire these people. The current U.S. policies on Immigration are incredibly short-sighted.
Unfortunately, the problem could only get worse for the U.S.
In an article that appeared in InformationWeek here, Marianne Kolbasuk McGee writes:

While the United States continues to argue about whether to raise the H-1B visa cap and reform green-card processes to allow more foreign tech workers into the country, the European Union wants to make it much easier for highly skilled workers from abroad to land jobs in the EU's 27 member countries.

The EU, which is predicting a severe workforce crisis over the next several decades as its Baby Boomer generation retires, aims to attract 20 million workers from the outside in the years to come.

The EU hopes that a new proposed "blue card" will help fill that void, providing a more attractive alternative to the U.S. green-card program, which critics say is plagued by backlogs, cumbersome processes, and insufficient quotas.

In the article, Robert Hoffman, VP for Government and Public Affairs at Oracle beautifully sums up the dilemma faced by companies in the U.S.:

"Europe has sent a message. They're aggressively pursuing the professional talent they need to compete on the global stage...The Senate has unfortunately also sent a message, and it doesn't bode well for the U.S. economy."

The Contingent Workforce

I came across an interesting quote that underscores my point in an earlier post about the need for people to be more proactive in managing their careers. The quote comes from a book entitled: Headhunters - Matchmaking in the Labor Market written by William Finlay & James Coverdill [two professors of Sociology at the University of Georgia]. The book itself is an academic study of the Executive Search industry. In the book the professors write, "A vice president for human resources at AT&T argued, as his company was preparing to lay off thousands of workers, that employees needed to abandon old-fashioned notions of job security: 'People need to look at themselves as self-employed, as vendors who come to this company to see their skills. In AT&T, we have to promote the whole concept of the workforce being contingent.' He went on to suggest that even the very concept of a 'job' was outdated and that employees needed to think of their careers in terms of 'projects' and 'fields of work', for the society was becoming one that was 'jobless but not workless'.
Sage advice indeed.

IMS Health Predicts 5 to 6 Percent Growth for Global Pharmaceutical Market in 2008

IMS, a consulting and business intelligence firm for the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industries, recently released their Annual Forecast for the Pharmaceutical industry. You can see the Press Release that details some of the findings in the report here. The reports states that 2008 will mark an important point in the history of the industry:
”In several respects, 2008 marks an important inflection point for the global pharmaceutical market,” says Murray Aitken, senior vice president, Healthcare Insight, IMS. “For the first time, the seven largest markets will contribute just half of overall pharmaceutical market growth, while seven emerging markets will contribute nearly 25 percent of growth worldwide. And, as the impact of established pharmaceuticals losing patent protection accelerates, we will see a decline for the first time in the size of the $370 - 380 billion audited market for primary care-driven drugs. In the coming year, biopharmaceutical and generics companies will more aggressively adjust their business models to manage through these inflections, capturing new opportunities in this changing market environment.”
The Pharmaceutical industry is experiencing a dynamic period. Stability is no longer a given.
The key players are changing. The old strategies for managing your career no longer apply. For example, simply joining a company in Big Pharma no longer guarantees a long stable career. Going forward, employees in the Pharmaceutical Industry will need to be more proactive in managing their careers. They will need to be more aware of the changes that are occurring in the industry. And, equally important, they will need to be aware of how those changes will impact their jobs and careers. If nothing else, the future will prove to be exciting.