Hiring by pharmaceutical and life-sciences companies has gone up by 7-8 per cent over the last 40 days and is likely to surge up to 25 per cent in the next six months, as they ramp up drug production to meet domestic as well as global demand amid the Covid-19 pandemic, industry experts said. According to Xpheno, a staffing firm catering to the pharma sector, as many as 30,000 vacancies exist across the pharma space, in areas of sales, research and development functions such as in formulation and analytical development, regulatory affairs, production and quality control. To cater to the growing demand for trained manpower, the Life Sciences Sector Skill Council has tied up with the department of biotechnology to expand its training programme beyond bio pharma to areas of R&D and manufacturing.“Of the above, about 7-8 per cent vacancies are newly released ones, in about the last 40 days, broadly to fill in for a surge in demand or to address a very strong anticipation of a new opportunity around the corner,” Xpheno cofounder Kamal Karanth told ET.76394986This is likely to go up 25 per cent by December with companies getting ready for a sharp increase in demand post the pandemic, BTI Executive Search managing director James Agrawal said.“We have at least four-five such companies where we are helping in ramping up their headcount in India. They are not only looking at leadership talent but also talent at the mid and entry level,” Agrawal said.Zydus Cadila, one of the first companies to announce its vaccine programme for Covid-19 and is manufacturing the Covid Kavach Elisa kits, is recruiting people mostly in manufacturing and quality operations, especially at the shop floor.“We are open to hiring freshers, apprentices or even experienced professionals while also focusing on multi-skilling our existing workforce,” a Zydus Cadila spokesperson said.

This article was published on The Economic Times