Half of multinational companies in Korea restructured 2019

Analyzing 29 major multinational pharmaceutical companies, 13 companies have restructured in 2019

Janssen Vaccines and Galderma Korea struggling with performance have downsized

Apparently, one out of two multinational pharmaceutical companies in Korea has downsized last year.

 

The outcome contrasts with Korean pharmaceutical and bio companies that have increased employment in the same time, despite the worsened profitability.

 

Analyzing audit reports submitted to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) on Apr.

 

16, 13 out of 29 multinational pharmaceutical companies in Korea have reported lessened number of employees last year than in the year before.

 

Except for three companies without a change in employment size, basically a half of multinational companies in Korea have reduced the employment.

 

From the end of 2018 to the end of 2019, Galderma Korea’s number of employee has dropped the most from 94 to 73 with a one fifth cut.

 

After hiring 99 employees in 2014, the company has maintained the size for about four years, but the number has dipped significantly in about a year.

 

After the appointment of General Manager Rene Wipperich at the Korean affiliate in August 2018, Galderma Korea has offered early retirement programs twice and the employment number has fallen.

 

The company reported it has been in the red since 2015.

 

Changes in employment size in 29 major multinational pharmaceutical companies (Unit: Number of employee) Source: Financial Supervisory Service

In general, the multinational companies with underwhelming performance have restructured.

 

Janssen Vaccines has maintained the same number of employees from 2018 to 2019, but the number actually halved from five years ago at 296.

 

Janssen Vaccines’ performance has been stagnating for a while.

 

Since it made operating loss of 20.9 billion won in 2016, the company has been in the red for four consecutive years.

 

The sales have been rapidly falling from 99 billion won in 2016 to 42.7 billion won and 27.6 billion won in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and at last, the company has made no profit last year.

 

The company plans to operate in minimal human resources until it finishes refining anticancer and next generation vaccine production line.

 

It also has opened an opportunity for employees to request for transfer after it closes the Hyangnam manufacturing facility in 2021.

 

Other multinational companies had changes in employment size while reorganizing the businesses.

 

Even Pfizer Korea, currently with the highest number of employees among multinational pharmaceutical companies in Korea, has downsized slightly in a year.

 

In last May, the company has transferred 264 employees to its spin-off company Pfizer Upjohn Korea.

 

The number of total employee in both Pfizer Korea and Pfizer Upjohn Korea combined was 724, with 10 employees less than the year before.

 

Regardless of business restructuring, some companies have increased the number of employees.

 

Although Merck Korea has closed GM sector last year, the company has hired 22 more by the end of the year, reaching the total of 339 employees.

 

The figure was not drastically affected as only a handful applied for the ERP and the number of employees of other non-pharmaceutical sectors like Life Science or Performance Material sectors easily outnumbers that of the Biopharmaceutical sector.

 

Not all Korean affiliates have reduced employment size.

 

As of late December last year, the 29 multinational pharmaceutical companies had 6,884 employees in total, which was 170 more than 6,714 employees in the year before.

 

Among the 29 companies analyzed, Sanofi-Aventis Korea has reportedly hired new employees the most.

 

In last June, Sanofi has legally finalized the merge with Genzyme Korea.

 

As of last December, Sanofi-Aventis Korea had 64 more employees than the year before and had total of 506 employees.

 

Considering Genzyme Korea had 53 employees as of last 2018, the number of employees has increased over a year.

 

Sanofi-Aventis has shown outstanding performance by combining Genzyme Korea’s performance from the latter half of last year.

 

Over the year, the sales has increased by 17.7 percent, marking 438.3 billion won, and operating profit reached 34.8 billion won with 68.4 percent surge.

 

Number of employees in major multinational pharmaceutical companies in Korea as of last 2019 (Unit: Number of employee) Source: Financial Supervisory Service

Except for Pfizer Korea and Pfizer Upjohn Korea, Bayer Korea has the highest number of employees as of late 2019.

 

From late 2018 to late 2019, Bayer Korea has downsized from 588 to 562 with 26 less employees, but it still has the highest number of employees as a multinational pharmaceutical company in Korea.

 

Novartis Korea reported it has 542 employees as of last 2019.