The pharmaceutical industry in general and the group of research-based pharmaceutical companies in particular are less business cycle-dependent than other German industries. Comparing production, export turnover and employment data in the chemical, manufacturing and research-based pharmaceutical industry, the latter seems to be basically resistant to cyclical fluctuations. However, in the present economic downturn employment in the pharmaceutical industry shows a stark decline which can be explained with special effects. The results of the analysis as well as the underlying data must be handled with care, however. On the one hand, official statistics do not always provide consistent long-term time series. On the other hand, data collected by the German Association of Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies (vfa) do not always correspond with the classification used by the Federal Statistical Office.