Public healthcare systems around the world are notoriously overstretched, and local governments are actively taking steps to alleviate the pressure. In Hong Kong SAR, the government increased its public healthcare expenditure by 10.9% in 2019 from the previous year. However, public investments are limited and governments are increasingly looking to medical companies for better cost control and access to quality drugs and treatments.
Adding that to the ever-growing onset of healthcare challenges, we expect to see strong demand for professionals within the life sciences industry this year.
We anticipate more private healthcare businesses to restructure their operations in 2020 to accommodate new pipelines and business functions around company-focussed therapeutic areas. There is also a trend of multinational healthcare companies shifting their regional headquarters to other Asian cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, while retaining their local operating businesses in Hong Kong SAR. This allows them to develop more localised and targeted sales and marketing strategies to improve local healthcare.
Aside from the established companies in pharmaceuticals, medical devices and biotechnology, we expect to see more organisations specialising in newer health technologies enter the market in 2020, including local start-ups. These would include firms dealing with bioinformatics, medical robotics and DNA-based diagnostics.
2020 life sciences labour and salary trends.
Companies have been observed to be more selective when hiring roles that require medical expertise. In particular, employers were increasingly looking for candidates with prior academic and research experience to fill positions such as medical scientific liaisons, medical affairs professionals and healthcare application engineers.
Professionals in the life sciences space who intend to stay with their employers in 2020 may receive a 4% to 6% salary increment, with top-performers possibly receiving an increment of up to 10%.
download the digital copy of the Hong Kong SAR 2020 market outlook and salary snapshot in various key industries.
key highlights in this year’s life sciences market forecast.
- types of jobs and skills created by new healthcare diagnostics, management and treatment tools
- summary of global and local pressures on private sector to support mounting public healthcare challenges
- salary snapshots for more than 30 jobs in the life sciences industry