Reddit mentions of Fundamental Concepts of Bioinformatics

What a lab tech job does is build your resume by you doing research. Research is the ultimate goal of a bioinformatics career regardless of whether you are in academia or in the private sector. You will be doing research of some kind. I don't know of any bioinformatics jobs that are outside of science. You'd be just a regular statistician or computer programmer.

Anyone who wants to invest time and money into you wants to know you are capable of doing research and they don't know you outside of your resume. You're also competing against many, many people looking for graduate school or a job. People you have never met from all over your country/the world (thanks to the internet and online job postings). Many of them have better grades and better looking resumes than you, so you really have to stand out in something if you want to get hired in today's world.

There's no law stating you have to immediately grab your professional degree or research degree after graduating undergrad. And what you seem to not understand but will after doing your first real job hunt is that you must go through entry level jobs. Starting your career outside of an entry-level job these days is like winning the lottery. It's not going to happen. Don't bank on it.

The point of an entry level job like a laboratory tech is to get adjusted to the research environment by first taking care of the things that the PhD candidates and postdocs need done around the lab. You'll be running their experiments. If you have a good PI and you let them know what your goals are, they should let you start doing your own basic research projects. These are invaluable and will look great on your graduate school application or job application. It shows that you're able to apply your degree to actually doing useful work, which is what makes people offering the higher-level, better-paying jobs want to hire you.

Generally a masters degree lets you be a lab manager or get more senior research team positions which in the US usually gives you a pretty decent salary and do some of your own research, or work in a private firm and get more senior positions with time. You'll always start at the bottom unless you network in.

Additionally, for any PhD program worth a damn, they'll interview you and ask what your goals are and get a general idea of how competent you are. If you go into a PhD candidate interview and don't know what bioinformatics actually is, how the science world actually works, and some specifics of why you actually want to pursue the degree besides $$, they'll be more likely to see you as a potential burnout and more than likely won't pick you over someone with specific goals and a good idea of the industry and academic climate.

If you had said "I'm sure I'll get into a grad school program" I wouldn't be telling you this. You'd get a lot of experience there and it would be valuable to adding to your resume. But you are doubtful and I'm telling you what you don't want to hear but it's how life works for everyone who doesn't immediately get into grad school.

From what you wrote, it seems you are in the position a lot of about-to-be-graduates are in. They grew up with the promise of college=6 figure salary but that truth ended in the early 2000s after the dot com bubble burst (unless you're a mechanical, electrical, or petroleum engineer). Don't worry too much about money. Everyone gets by with what they have and you really don't end up with that much money after taxes when you're making the big bucks. It's more work and more stress and you're just giving it back to the government in the end. You obviously chose biochemistry for a reason, probably because the molecular world is fascinating. There's so much cool stuff you can do with your degree, money shouldn't be your main objective when looking for careers.

TL;DR: It's good that you're asking questions. If you're really really serious about pursuing a bioinformatics career, try picking up a book or two before proceeding any farther. It'll only take a day or two to power through an introduction to the field and some fundamental concepts. One I really like was one of my textbooks back in undergrad: Fundamental Concepts of Bioinformatics by Dan Krane & Michael Raymer

Edit: If you get that book get a used copy. New is an outrageous price.