The global financial meltdown, which has resulted in massive loss of jobs all over the world cutting across all the industrial sectors, has affected the employment opportunities in Indian pharmaceutical industry too, as per pharma head hunting firms.

The decreasing global demand and the financial crunch have compelled many Indian pharma companies to decrease their staff counts and the strict freeze on new recruitments. The demand for sales employees in the pharma firms has dropped by around 50 to 60 per cent in the recent past, revealed a recruitment firm source.

Apparently, the attrition level in the pharma industry has also come down considerably to six to 10 per cent which was much higher during the past few years. However, the demand for manpower with niche skills and technical expertise is still not affected by recession, averred the source.

"The hiring of field staff is definitely reduced by a large extent. But the sector is said to be recession proof when compared to other industries and we expect that the demand crunch will not go far above the head," explains Sanjay Shetty, director - operation with the Mumbai-based EmmayHR. The company is one among the headhunting firms with a separate division for pharma recruitment business.

However, the multinational firms are still increasing their staff strength in the country, especially in technical and marketing fields. Interestingly, on the other hand, the popularity of pharmaceutical companies in campus interviews are also increasing, revealed some HR firms. During some of the recent campus interviews, when compared to the earlier period, more students chose job in a pharmaceutical firms avoiding the choices of other attractive industries including information technology (IT).

"Of course, there is a slight slow down in recruitments in pharma industry at present. But we can't speculate that it is entirely due to recession and remember that the industry is growing at almost 7 per cent and at least 10 to 12 products are launched by pharma majors in the country every year. We think that the situation will improve in near future," said another HR source.