Biopharma employees reporting a positive business outlook for their companies dropped month over month but increased year over year in February, according to the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. Glassdoor’s findings align with recent BioSpace data.
Biopharma professionals’ confidence in their employers not only dipped month over month in February but also came in under overall employee confidence, according to the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index released earlier this month.
Glassdoor reported that the share of pharmaceutical and biotechnology employees reporting a positive six-month business outlook for their companies dropped from 44.1% in January to 42.3% in February. Overall employee confidence was higher last month, at 44.4%, but was also the lowest level on record since Glassdoor began tracking data in 2016.
Although biopharma employees’ positive outlook was down month over month in February, it rose 1.3% year over year, indicating there’s been slightly more optimism among industry professionals captured by Glassdoor’s index.
Regarding the overall drop in confidence, Glassdoor noted that economic anxiety and especially concerns about job security, layoffs and workforce cuts’ impact on those left behind weighed on employees. That aligns with recent BioSpace data. The BioSpace 2025 U.S. Life Sciences Employment Outlook report, for example, found that 42% of survey respondents late last year were very concerned about the economic climate, and 46% were somewhat concerned. In addition, 20% were fearful they may lose their job.
Some of those survey respondents may now be out of work. Although year-over-year biopharma job loss slowed in January and February, at least 2,300 people were let go during the first two months of the year, based on BioSpace data. More than 1,000 have been laid off so far in March. Those tallies exclude contract development and manufacturing organizations, contract research organizations, tools and services businesses and medical device firms.
Compared to other industries that are part of the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index, biopharma ranked fairly low, at No. 15.
Glassdoor noted that employee confidence in government and public administration fell 4.9% month over month and that “Cuts to the government workforce initiated by DOGE have thrown the future of the federal workforce into disarray, resulting in weakening sentiment.” Those cuts have affected health authorities whose work is critical to the biopharma industry, including the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
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