Human Capital Pulse: Life Sciences | June 2026: Cuts, Caution & the Balance Gap

HUMAN CAPITAL PULSE: LIFE SCIENCES · ISSUE 6 · JUNE 2026

A monthly Human Capital benchmark for HR and People leaders in Life Sciences: the sector's talking points and how culture, workforce and talent compare across your peers, built on Deltabase data covering 5,500+ companies and 11M employee reviews.

Editor's note

June's people story in Life Sciences was about stretch. BioSpace counted almost 7,000 biopharma job cuts in May, most of the sector does not expect the job market to recover this year, and Merck moved into the next phase of its multiyear optimisation. That combination puts wellbeing and work-life balance under pressure. This issue looks at where employees say balance is holding up, and where it is slipping.
Leroy Hall, Deltabase

The month in three

1. May cuts near 7,000 as Big Pharma keeps trimming

What happened: BioSpace reported on 11 June that biotech and pharma companies cut or planned to cut 6,956 employees in May, up 47% on May 2025 and nearly double February's 2026 high of 3,713. Takeda and BioNTech accounted for 6,360 of them, but smaller rounds landed across our peer set: AbbVie (85 in Irvine), Johnson & Johnson (56 in New Brunswick) and Novartis (at least 296 across several rounds).

The Deltabase lens: Work-Life Balance sentiment varies widely across those three. In 2025, Novartis employees scored it at +23.5% (down from +28.1% in 2024), AbbVie at +1.8% (up from −2.0%) and Johnson & Johnson at −4.6% (down from −1.0%).

So what: Repeated small rounds of cuts land on teams whose balance may already be thin. Track Work-Life Balance alongside restructuring milestones, not after them.

2. Most of the sector expects no hiring rebound until 2027

What happened: A BioSpace LinkedIn poll published on 11 June found just 23% of respondents expect the biopharma job market to rebound in 2026; 77% do not expect change until 2027 or later, and half not until 2028 or after. Mizuho Securities' Graig Suvannavejh pointed to an "increasing focus on being as cost-efficient as possible".

The Deltabase lens: Lean operating extends to People teams. In Deltabase Workforce data, HR makes up 3.5% of the workforce at AbbVie and 3.2% at Eli Lilly, against 2.0% at Novartis and 1.9% at both AstraZeneca and GSK.

So what: With hiring slow, wellbeing support has to come from existing capacity. Know how many People professionals you have for every employee before committing to new programmes.

3. Merck starts the next phase of its optimisation programme

What happened: WFMZ reported on 2 June that Merck filed notice to lay off 88 employees at its Rahway, New Jersey, headquarters from 4 September, which a spokesperson described as "the next phase of personnel impacts related to its multiyear optimization". The programme, announced in July 2025, covers about 6,000 roles globally and targets $3 billion of annual savings by the end of 2027.

The Deltabase lens: Long restructures test how well an organisation manages change. Deltabase Talent data shows change management skills held by 5.9% of the workforce at Eli Lilly and 5.8% at Bristol Myers Squibb, against 3.5% at Pfizer.

So what: Multi-year programmes create sustained uncertainty. Make sure enough people are skilled in leading change to keep communication regular and honest.

Stat of the month

+26.1%: Eli Lilly's Work-Life Balance score in 2025, the highest of these five large peers and up +9.9 pts on 2024

Source: Deltabase Culture data, Work-Life Balance topic, Employee Net Sentiment Score (−100% to +100%), 2024–2025; Deltabase Talent data, share of workforce holding benefits-management skills.

Spotlight: Sanofi vs Johnson & Johnson

Sanofi had the stronger 2025. Its overall Employee Net Sentiment Score rose to +21.4% (+4.2 pts), the highest in our ten-company Life Sciences peer set, while Johnson & Johnson slipped to +12.0% (−1.5 pts). The gap is sharpest on Work-Life Balance: +6.0% at Sanofi (+4.7 pts) against −4.6% at J&J (−3.7 pts). Sanofi also leads on Pay & Rewards (+63.2% against +49.3%) and Supportive Leadership (−8.6% against −11.8%). On talent, 13.9% of Sanofi's employees with under a year's tenure hold AI skills, against 9.2% at J&J.

For your People team

• Put Work-Life Balance on the same dashboard as your restructuring timeline, and review it at every phase.
• Benchmark your People-team capacity (HR as a share of the workforce) against peers before launching new wellbeing programmes.
• Check whether change-management capability sits in only a few teams, and build it where the next restructure will land.

See how your Human Capital compares with your Life Sciences peers. Book a 30-minute benchmark walkthrough across culture, workforce and talent. Book a walkthrough →

Sources: BioSpace (11 June 2026, May layoffs); BioSpace (11 June 2026, job market outlook); WFMZ (2 June 2026); Deltabase Culture data; Deltabase Workforce data; Deltabase Talent data.