Despite biotech sector, grads leave southeast U.S. for jobs

In recent years the Southeast U.S. has been recognized as a growing hub for biotech business. The area--which is made up of seven states--boasts the dynamic clusters of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. It also produces a good number of skilled graduates, such as lab technicians and PhDs, MDs and MPHs, who make for a rich crop of up-and-coming biotech workers.

But Karen Ventii of TechJournalSouth reports that many of these graduates are heading to other parts of the country to find jobs, and experts fear the "brain drain" could impact the future of the southeast's biotech hub. "It is evident that the life science industries in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida are still quite young and home-grown and, as a result, labor force issues are expected to have significant effects on growth. These problems are likely to reflect similar situations in other Southeastern states," observes Ventii. Experts say the problem is two-fold: there aren't enough jobs for students, and it's a struggle to connect students with available jobs. Southeast BIO is working to reverse this trend. The group is raising awareness about opportunities in the area so that candidates to look elsewhere and hopes to foster its biotech cluster by offering enough opportunities to keep grads in the southeast.

- check out the TechJournalSouth article