After slight 4th quarter
decline, healthcare sales job market takes a positive turn.
The healthcare industry
continues to be a bright spot in the economy. The January Employment Situation report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows 45,000 healthcare
jobs were added in December, and the industry’s unemployment rate is down to
5.2% – more than 2.5 points below the national average. Despite the positive
job trend for healthcare overall, both the medical device and pharmaceutical
sectors are facing circumstances – namely increased taxes and fees
mandated by the Affordable Care Act – that may in fact slow down job growth. Is
this predicted slowdown already impacting healthcare sales jobs? The
MedReps.com January Jobs report regularly evaluates the number of healthcare
sales jobs on five niche sites to assess the current market and speculate how
the medical device excise tax, user fees, and the “patent cliff” is impacting
the healthcare sales job market.
The current state of healthcare sales jobs
Job counts on nearly every
site monitored went down somewhat in December.
The dip may, in part, be
seasonal, but the decline may also reflect the general uncertainty surrounding
the fiscal cliff and the implementation of the device excise tax. For MedReps,
however, the slight downturn has a third contributing factor. In an ongoing
effort to preserve the quality of jobs on MedReps, in December, several
jobs were removed that did not meet quality standards.
Even with this additional
oversight, job count numbers on MedReps are climbing back up in January with
what appears to be legitimate jobs. Historically, January brings an influx of
job opportunities to the site, and 2013 appears to be following the trend,
despite industry concerns about increasing taxes and fees.
The December dip was
relatively consistent when looking at job counts by sector. However, biotech
jobs appear to be having the strongest rebound in January. Medical device jobs
showed the greatest decline in the 4th quarter, but since the
beginning of the year, med device sales job counts have taken a positive turn. Pharma sales jobs have shown some
fluctuation, but seem to be holding steady for the most part.
Projections on the healthcare sales job market
As the implementation of the
Affordable Care Act moves forward, the medical device and pharmaceutical
sectors are making plans for how they will succeed in the new healthcare
environment. While the industry is most certainly facing new challenges –
primarily increased taxes and fees – most companies will still figure out a way
to be profitable.
In a recent interview with
MedReps, healthcare staffing expert, Shane Jackson, shared his thoughts on the future of the medical device and pharmaceutical
industry: “In the short-term, there could be some instability, but this tax and
other things happening in the industry are not going to impact America’s desire
to consume medical devices and pharmaceutical products. So ultimately, I think
medical companies are going to find a way to be profitable and continue to
grow.”
Conclusion
While there is still talk of
repealing the medical device excise tax and other components of healthcare
reform, companies are moving forward with the reality of the new law.
Fortunately, the current uptick in healthcare sales job counts suggests that
cutting back on sales hiring is not part of most companies’ initial plans to
deal with these new challenges.
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