Many Firms In USA Recruiting Again

For the last couple of years, US drug companies have said that due tothe changes that were taking place in the health care arena with pressures for cost containment and managed care, they have had to reduce the number of sales staff. This scenario is now changing and many of these companies are looking to recruit sales staff again.

Bristol-Myers Squibb is to recruit around 1,200 sales staff, Pfizer has taken on 600 new staff, and Novartis is to recruit around 500 to its US sales force, reports the Financial Times.

One of the reasons behind this recruitment binge is that research embarked on in the 1980s is starting to come through to the market, as can be seen with Zeneca. However, sales forces are still around 10% smaller than in the early 1990s.