Maine’s bioscience industry added about 1,600 jobs during the pandemic

The pandemic has fueled a 42% improve within the variety of lab technicians, medical gadget producers, chemists, engineers and different life science jobs in Maine during the last 5 years.

A brand new report from the Bioscience Affiliation of Maine reveals the state added about 1,600 jobs between 2020 and 2021 alone. Maine’s business skilled quicker job development than in different New England states during the last 5 years.

Many corporations in Maine had been well-positioned to fabricate the exams and different gadgets wanted to diagnose COVID-19, mentioned Agnieszka Carpenter, the affiliation’s govt director.

She mentioned the expansion of the business might decelerate within the coming years, relying on the route of the pandemic.

“However I feel it is a actually nice alternative for Maine to pivot just a little bit and to make use of the momentum and the expansion that the businesses have skilled. Additionally, it is value noting that the expansion has not solely been within the corporations which are usually related to the COVID response,” she mentioned.

IDEXX, for instance, is the Maine’s largest life science employer, and Carpenter mentioned the corporate added greater than 1,000 new jobs within the final two or three years.

“However I’d not be shocked if there hadn’t been a pandemic, we might most likely see one thing between 15 and 25%,” she mentioned. “That is my guesstimate.”

The business was rising in Maine properly earlier than the pandemic, Carpenter mentioned. The affiliation final reported again in 2019 that the job charge had grown by 14% over a five-year interval.

The typical bioscience wage in Maine is about $108,741, a 128% improve during the last twenty years, in keeping with the report. Maine life science professionals earn a median wage of about $31 an hour, in comparison with about $23 an hour for all different occupations within the state.