The academic job market for PhD in biology/biomedical fields is terrible. Only 15% of bio/biomed PhD find permanent academic positions with 6 years of graduation.
See: [Addressing Biomedical Science’s PhD Problem](Addressing Biomedical Science’s PhD Problem | The Scientist Magazine®)
While some PhDs will find jobs in applied industrial research labs (think Monsanto/chem industry, the pharm industry, tobacco industry, big Ag, etc) there is still a huge oversupply of bio/biomed PhDs. Annual surveys of recent bio/biomed PhDs have reported that 30% of all those who have earned doctorates within the last 5 years are either unemployed or underemployed.
The job market for a MS in biology is equally or even more poor than for those with a PhD. (In part because of the generally poor quality of some/many MS programs–which many colleges use as revenue generators.) For the most part, a MS won’t get anyone a position that one couldn’t get with just a bachelors.
When my daughters were choosing college majors, my husband (an academic with a STEM PhD ) and I both strongly discouraged our children from choosing biology as their undergrad major, or, if they did, to supplement that degree with a second major or strong minor that would improve their employability in the job market post college graduation. In both cases, our daughters selected math/applied math as a second major and added coursework in statistics, probability/risk management and computer programming. The addition of the math made them both more employable immediately post graduation and allowed them entry into a variety graduate programs (biomedical engineering, public health/epidemiology, biostatistics, computational bio, medical physics, etc) that are in high demand and offer good career options & salaries.
N=3
D2 took a breather between undergrad and med school. She used math degree as an employment hook and spent 2 years as a research program manager at a top med school. Her college BF was a Bio PhD student at the same university. The (now ex-) BF is still toiling the field of graduate research 6 years later, in part because the job market for new PhDs is so bad. He is unable secure a permanent post-PhD position despite doing 2 internships in industrial research. D2 has 2 friends who were also in the same top 5 bio PhD program--one quit ABD because she was so discouraged by her job prospects. She enrolled in an unfunded MS in biostatistics because she knew that at least she could get a job when she finished. (She did, and now works for the NIH.) The other finished her PhD and is now teaching high school science in the same school district where she grew up.
FWIW, both my Ds' high schools --including one low-ranked & underperforming public district HS--had teachers with PhDs in chemistry and biology, some from top academic programs (Berkeley and MIT among others.)