Employee structure

Companies and employees of dedicated biotechnology companies, distributed according to federal statesSource: biotechnologie.de

The total number of employees remained stabil in 2008. Thus, the 501 dedicated biotech companies had
14,450 employees on their books, a growth of 0.6 % over the previous year. The most are located in the three federal states Bavaria, Northrhine-Westfalia and Baden-Württemberg. Furthermore, 15,520 of the total figure are employed in the biotechnology-related business areas of pharmaceutical, chemical or agricultural companies, which is also a slight increase of 2 % over 2007. With this, the total number employed in commercial biotechnology in Germany is 29,970, 1.4 % more than the previous year, almost reaching the mark of 30,000.

Size structure of dedicated biotechnology companiesSource: biotechnologie.de

Size structure of dedicated biotechnology companies

As regards company size, a majority of 87 % is still very small. 43 % of the biotech firms are made up of less than 10 people, a further 44 % employed up to 50 people. This distribution is largely unchanged from the previous year. The same is true for companies that  employ over 100 people. Here, it is only a small group of companies. In contrast, the number of companies with more than 50 employees has not changed and remained at 65 (2007: 64).

Number of employees in the commercial biotechnology in Germany