Objective The study was focused on the current situation of human resources of pharmaceutical enterprises in Heilongjiang Province, to solve the problems of workforce shortage in small- and medium-sized pharmaceutical enterprises, and put forward corresponding countermeasures. Methods A convenient sampling method was used to investigate the basic situation of 12 pharmaceutical enterprises in Heilongjiang Province in June - November 2016, and interviews and questionnaire survey were conducted with the employees of human resources departments. The basic situation of the survey included: the general situation, the demand for talent, the development of pharmaceutical enterprises and so on. Staff interviews included: the number of talents introduced and the number of outflows in the past 3 years, human resources needs, knowledge and ability of pharmaceutical enterprises. The staff survey included: employee job satisfaction, turnover tendency and career development prospects. Results The number of employees in the 12 pharmaceutical enterprises was 22065. Employees' age was in 34 - < 44 years old, with low education qualifications, 74.6% (16456/22065) of employees attended junior college or below . There were 6246 technical personnel , most of them (3678) received college education. In the interviews with 36 employees, it was found that the pharmaceutical enterprises were short of workforce. The unstable sources for the workforce and brain drain were the biggest problem in the development of pharmaceutical enterprises. In the 591 questionnaires, 24.6%(145/591) of employees had the idea of changing jobs in the past year. Conclusion Pharmaceutical enterprises should pay attention to the introduction and training of talented staff, and develop a series of preferential conditions to attract them, so as to achieve the goal of thriving enterprises by talented workforce.