Management Trends and Tariffs - June 6, 2025

Sorry I’m a bit late this week, it has been busy! Here are a few hiring trends and jobs that stood out.

Management Hiring ¶

Last week we saw a split of about 60/40 in favor of Individual Contributor roles, which is roughly on-par with the average rate since the beginning of the year, which sits at 59% IC, 41% management and varies between 36% and 48% management each week.

Management roles typically indicate a company is preparing to build out or formalize a team, so watching the pattern of management vs. IC positions at an individual company can be very informative in terms of strategic direction.

AI/ML Management Hiring

I mentioned last week that I’m working on an AI/ML hiring report. In this report I looked at the hiring patterns within companies, and saw some significant differences in hiring patterns across companies.

I’m still in the process of finalizing this report, if you’d like to see a brief version, I’d appreciate your feedback. Respond to this email and I’ll send it your way!

Interesting Positions ¶

Merck and Johnson & Johnson posted some interesting tariff related roles last week!

Merck posted two roles for “Senior Specialist in Tariff Classification” ($104,200 - $163,900) in Rahway, NJ, and Johnson & Johnson is looking for an “Import Export Specialist” ($56,350 - $89,930) in Santa Clara, CA to help maintain compliance with customs laws and regulations.

Global Trade and Trade Compliance Roles

These positions made me wonder how the pharma industry was responding to the erratic tariff policies from the US. Looking at roles that mention “tariff” in either the job title or description, I saw only 79 positions, and there did seem to be a steady increase from January through April, with a slight tapering in May. When I expanded the search for worldwide biotech/pharma positions mentioning trade, tariffs, and import/export related roles, I saw a similar pattern.

PharmaPayWatch’s comprehensive database only goes to about November of 2024, so I can’t say definitively whether this is an unusual increase in hiring activity year over year– but I do think it is worth keeping an eye on!

That’s all for this week, if this type of analysis is interesting to you and you’d like a deeper dive, please let me know!

Data from PharmaPayWatch.com | US jobs only | Questions? Reply to this email or reach out to [email protected]