South Korean biotech companies are short in personnel, a contrasting situation where the country’s overall unemployed population have hovered above 1 million for nine straight months.

Biotech companies are seriously understaffed due to their fast growth with little resources to foster and train tech personnel at the same time.

Celltrion, one of the country’s biggest biosimilar manufacturers, is a typical company that shows a talent mismatch in its sector. It started business in 2002 with only two employees and grew to a company with about 1,500 on the payroll. Last year alone, the company hired 200, but is still suffering from a lack of trained professionals. The biggest obstacle is a lengthy period of time before a new college graduate is fully trained to work for the company, Celltrion said.

The lack of STEM graduates is the most striking in the sector of bio and healthcare, one of Korea’s 12 major industries, along with software business. According to data from Korea Institute of Science & Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP), the manpower shortage rate reached 3.5 percent in 2016, the second highest level behind 4 percent in the software industry. The bio/health manufacturing sector has 28,426 technical workers and is still shy of 1,023 employees. The manpower shortage rate in other industries is 3.5 percent in chemistry, 2.7 percent in machinery, 2.3 percent in textile and 2.2 percent in electronics.

By Seo Jin-woo and Minu Kim

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]