Queensland Life Sciences Industry Report 2012 (PDF, 3.5MB)

TABLE 22: IBISWorld industry statistics 2010/2011
Sector Number of Enterprises Employment Revenue ($m)
Biotechnology 498 7513 $7073
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing 151 13,375 $9350
Pharmaceutical Wholesaling 197 5415 $10,715
Medical and Surgical Equipment 1893 11,674 $3015
TABLE 23: Australian Life Sciences Industry location of establishments (IBISWorld)
State Biotechnology (by
employment)
5.4 Anticipated Employment Growth
Across all companies, the forecast average growth in employees
over the coming 12 months was 5.2%. The number of employees
was forecast to rise from 3433 to 3612 FTEs, or an average of 33
FTE employees per company (up from 31 in 2011).
The average increase in company employees in the sector over the
next three years was forecast to be 34.3% (CAGR of 10.3%). This
would bring total employees within companies who responded to
the survey to 4612 FTEs in 2014 (an average of 44 employees per
company) (Table 24).
TABLE 24: Predicted employment growth from Queensland Life
Sciences companies
Actual -
2011
Forecast -
12 months
Forecast -
3 years
Number of respondents 111 109 106
Total FTEs Across
Companies
3433 3612 4612
Average per Respondent 31 33 44
CAGR* Across Companies - 5.2% 10.3%
Employment forecasts provided by companies in the 2009 survey
indicated a positive business sentiment at that time. However,
based on the 2011 employment data, these forecasts appear not
to have been met. In 2009, the average number of employees per
company was forecast to rise from 39 in 2009 to 41 in 2010 and to
55 in 2012. The average number of FTEs across companies in 2011
was only 31, indicating a decline on the average reported in 2009.
Pharmaceutical
Manufacturing
(by establishments)
Medical and Surgical
Equipment Manufacturing
(by establishments)
5.5 Employment of Contractors
Company respondents were asked to nominate the total number
of FTE contractors retained over the past 12 months. 57%
of companies (62 of 110 respondents) reported a total of 271
FTE contractors, representing approximately 7.3% of the QLS
workforce (given that 111 respondent companies reported 3433
FTE employees). In 2010, the ABS reported that contractors
comprised 9.8% of the Australian workforce. 24
On average, there were 4.4 FTE contractors per company (median
of 2.0 FTEs). The majority (94%; 58 respondents) reported
contractor numbers of less than 10 and this group averaged
2.3 contractors per company. Four companies (6%) reported
10 or more contractors (average of 35.0 FTEs). A breakdown of
contractor numbers by industry sub-sector is shown in Table 25.
TABLE 25: Proportion of employees and contractors in companies
by industry sub-sector in 2011 (111 respondents)
Proportion of
Total FTEs
Pharmaceutical
Wholesaling
(by establishments)
Victoria 48% 29% 25.2% 27.5%
New South Wales 20% 34% 32.2% 40.5%
Queensland 15% 17% 17.0% 18.0%
South Australia 9% 7% 9.0% 5.0%
Western Australia 6% 11% 11.3% 6.5%
Tasmania 1% 2% 3.3% 1.0%
ACT 1% 0% 1.7% 1.0%
NT - - 0.3% 0.5%
24 Australian Bureau of Statistics 6359.0 — Forms of Employment, Australia, November 2010.
Proportion of
Contracted FTEs
Pharmaceuticals, Vaccines
or Drug Discovery
17.8% 29.0%
Diagnostics 5.4% 3.0%
Medical Devices and Equipment 10.0% 10.6%
Complementary Medicines 37.6% 23.0%
Functional Food/Nutraceuticals 4.3% 5.1%
Animal Health 2.8% 2.6%
Biotechnology 11.8% 17.5%
Industry Service Provider 8.9% 4.5%
Other 1.4% 4.7%
Total 100% 100%
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