Jamil Jantan, 41, operations technician, Pfizer

THE search for job stability led Mr Jamil to Pfizer. But when his friends first heard he was joining a pharmaceutical company, they thought he was becoming a chemist.

When he told his family, they thought he would be packaging Viagra pills. 'They can't visualise what I'm doing,' he said.

As an operations technician, he works 12-hour shifts between 8pm and 8am in Pfizer's manufacturing facility, where drug ingredients are made and shipped elsewhere to be made into pills.

After two years, he was promoted to be in charge of manning a process. This means he has to make sure there are no hiccups when chemicals are transferred from one reactor to another.

Mr Jamil joined the pharma industry after more than 10 years in the marine and petrochemical sector. Having worked on contract, he decided he wanted a permanent job. Through search agencies, he got a position at the drug giant.

'I knew of Pfizer only because my mother was taking Lipitor (the popular cholesterol-lowering drug) at that time,' he recalled.

While he has been learning much on the job, the best thing for him, as a father of two, is that he finally has a stable job.

'Pharma is an up-and-coming industry... I can see there are plants coming up all around, so I definitely feel that it is more secure,' he said.

Working long shifts can be exhausting but it also has its benefits, as Mr Jamil can see his children more on the weekdays when he is off duty.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.