Healthcare talents embrace new opportunities in post-pandemic era

China’s healthcare recruitment market has great post-pandemic prospects as more new job opportunities will emerge, international recruitment expert Hays says.

 

Although the national healthcare industry has been impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been presented with new development opportunities driven by preferential domestic policy trends and the driving force of the capital market.

 

According to the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, the nation will “comprehensively advance” the building of a Healthy China. Additionally, deputies to the National People’s Congress and members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference who participated in this year’s “Two Sessions”, China’s most important annual political gatherings, shared and discussed their opinions on the healthcare industry, the acceleration of “Internet Plus” Healthcare, industrialisation of biomedicine and other health topics.

 

This focus did not arise overnight. The Chinese government has been actively taking measures to support the development of the healthcare industry in recent years and it will continue to do so in the years ahead. According to the 2021 Hays Asia Salary Guide (Salary Guide hereafter), the Chinese government is supporting healthcare innovations, R&D and new drugs by way of investment incentives and licensing business development grants, which ensures the national life science industry will continue the development momentum of last year. 

 

The capital market is also displaying a clear trend of favouring the healthcare sector. In 2020, the healthcare industry was the most popular sector for investment, receiving over RMB 150 billion in total. Notably, the venture capital financing of biomedicine, medical devices, and diagnostic medical tools increased by 100% compared to the year before. The Salary Guide said that Private Equity and Venture Capital (PEVC) organisations are still sensing the potential for licensing and development opportunities in the life science industry and that funding will continue to flow to the industry in 2021, further promoting the emergence of more recruitment opportunities.

 

The joint forces of the government’s incentive policies and increasing investment by institutional investors are driving rapid growth of China's local healthcare enterprises.

Meanwhile, the local and the multinational healthcare companies in China are in fierce competition for talent and both domestic and foreign companies are transforming their talent recruitment strategies, according to Hays.

 

“China has become the first major economy to recover from the pandemic. The Chinese market has also provided a broad development space for the healthcare industry, where the proportion of local companies is more than ever before. This means rich and diverse job opportunities for candidates,” says Simon Lance, Managing Director of Hays Greater China

 

 

The rapid development of China’s local healthcare companies has increased the demand for professionals with experience of multinationals in the functions including marketing, research and development (R&D), digitalisation and more.

 

“For Hays, especially in healthcare, domestic clients are a markedly increasing proportion of our overall business. We believe that the growth of local companies will create more opportunities for talents, further driving the healthy flow of talents to stimulate the innovation potential of Chinese companies," Simon Lance says.

 

Notably, the local innovative pharmaceutical companies are paying more attention to their Business Development (BD) divisions and treating them as one of their most crucial core competencies, says Hays. The main function of a BD division is license in and license out, that means helping the company to introduce new patents to save time on R&D, and helping the company to sell their pipelines to earn revenue.

 

Hays says that the BD position requires a candidate to possess a multifaceted skillset. An appropriate candidate must have both pharmaceutical knowledge and good business awareness. Therefore, candidates who with a Ph.D. in pharmacy-related majors and a business background are prioritised by employers.

 

Mature large-scale pharmaceutical and medical device enterprises and innovative enterprises with financing support are displaying strong recruitment momentum, according to Hays. And local enterprises are normally able to offer attractive remuneration and even equity incentives to talents. Candidates who can work as part of the management team can also gain a greater say in the development of the company.

 

According to a Hays survey, 80% of respondents in the healthcare industry said that they would consider the job opportunities offered by local companies but for same level positions would prioritize those of multinational companies. Normally, the local companies needed to offer a salary increase of 20-30% on average to attract talents with multinational backgrounds. Besides, benefits such as an equity incentive, stock-based compensation, and even employee stock ownership plan are being offered by local companies to attract candidates.

 

However, candidates at different career stages show different willingness to join local companies. According to Hays, with an attractive salary package and management authority, executives of multinational companies are more willing to join local enterprises to expand their career horizons; while candidates for mid-level positions prefer the mature training systems of multinational companies instead.

 

Simon Lance observes that since the multinational pharmaceutical companies usually set up their early-stage R&D division overseas, most of their domestic employees in China are currently in middle and late stage R&D, manufacturing, and sales.

 

 

Strategies in response to the changing industry environment of China, many multinational companies have introduced measures to actively adjust their business, hence the focus of their talent recruitment is changing accordingly, Hays notes.

 

As China is implementing a centralised drug procurement policy, the industry ecosystem of multinational pharmaceutical companies is facing reconstruction. Due to the high cost of product development and production, and the weakening of their price advantage in the competition with local enterprises, the sales of some of their products in the Chinese market have also shown a downturn.

 

The current centralised drug procurement measure is advancing the diversification of talent recruitment in multinational companies, Simon Lance says.

 

On the one hand, the multinational pharmaceutical companies are actively seeking cooperation with their local counterparts to jointly participate in R&D and production in order to seek more room for price reductions, increasing the demand for relevant positions. At the same time, they are also actively looking for experienced medical insurance negotiation experts to better respond to their domestic development needs.

 

On the other hand, the multinational pharmaceutical companies are exploring new business opportunities offered by the development of integrated diagnosis and treatment models, such as internet hospitals. Companies are investing a lot of resources to build digital marketing platforms to establish connections among hospitals, patients, and products. Therefore, talents who have mastered digital technology will receive more attention from the multinational enterprises.

 

 

As China encourages the localisation of medical devices and other sub-sectors, many relevant positions will emerge. According to the Salary Guide, industries related to the manufacturing of medical devices and pharmaceutical machines are set to be the key areas for R&D recruitment in 2021, particularly in the technical aspects. However, there is a shortage of talents engaged in scientific research in China, Hays said.

 

Chinese government and academia are paying more attention to the cultivation of talents in the field of basic research and have issued relevant policies in order to make up the shortage.

 

To cope with the talents shortage, Hays said that some healthcare companies are trying to lure talents from other industries, for instance, many device companies are considering candidates from fields such as automobiles and materials engineering.

 

“The development of the recruitment market in China’s healthcare industry needs to be supported by a more adequate reserve of professionals and talents, which requires trilateral collaboration among the industry, the higher education institutions and the research institutes to cultivate the talents needed by the industry,” Simon Lance says.

 

 

Local companies and multinational companies are different in many aspects regarding human resources, and it will need candidates to be prepared for the changes to come. 

Local companies can normally offer a candidate a more attractive salary package and greater decision-making power while the multinational companies have more advantages in terms of internal training, overseas rotation programs, and systematic processes, Hays notes.

Compared with the multinational companies that highly recognize the process-driven employees who have strong executive capability, local companies have stronger demand for their employees to be able to think strategically, while effectively solving down-to-the-earth problems, Hays adds.

 

Hays advises that a candidate should be well prepared if they intend to make a switch.

 

Taking into account the volatile and fluctuating marketplace, it is essential that employees are up to date with all industry trends, making continuous upskilling vital, especially relating to digital skills, the Salary Guide recommended. It is critical that both jobseekers and employees alike are on top of the latest skillsets in order to maintain competitiveness in the workplace and better embrace the possible changes and development opportunities in the future.

 

Download your copy of the 2021 Hays Asia Salary Guide by clicking here.
 
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About Hays China
 
Hays Specialist Recruitment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. is one of China's leading recruitment companies in recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people across a wide range of industries and professions. 
 
Hays has been in China for over a decade with operational offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. We boast a track record of success and growth, dealing in permanent positions across 14 different specialisms, including Accountancy & Finance, Banking & Financial Services, Digital Technology, Engineering, Finance Technology, Human Resources, Information Technology, Legal, Life Sciences, Marketing & Digital, Office Professionals, Procurement, Supply Chain and Sales. Hays China was named Best Workplace™ and Best Workplaces™ for Women in Greater China 2019, and recently ranked one of the the Best Workplaces™ in Asia by Great Place to Work®.
 
About Hays
 
Hays plc (the "Group") is a leading global professional recruiting group. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK and Australia and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe, Latin America and Asia. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 30 June 2020 the Group employed c.10,400 staff operating from 266 offices in 33 countries across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2020:

–    the Group reported net fees of £996.2 million and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £135.0 million;
–    the Group placed around 66,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 235,000 people into temporary roles;
–    17% of Group net fees were generated in Australia & New Zealand, 26% in Germany, 23% in United Kingdom & Ireland and 34% in Rest of World (RoW);
–    the temporary placement business represented 59% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 41% of net fees;
–    IT is the Group’s largest specialism, with 25% of net fees, while Accountancy & Finance (15%) and Construction & Property (12%), are the next largest
–    Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA