Insurance industry hiring evens out, though some positions remain unfilled

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A new study showed that insurer job availability will continue to be substantial and steady for the next year.

Insurance industry hiring is stabilizing as over half of all insurers intend to boost the size of their staff over the next year. The Jacobson Group and Ward Group released their Semi-Annual U.S. Insurance Labor Outlook Study results.

Fifty eight percent of insurance companies will be hiring more people in 2018, said the study.

The insurance industry hiring trend is greatly supported by a predicted boost in business as well as an expansion into new markets, said the study. While this year, 58 percent of insurance companies are intending to hire new staff members, last year, that figure was at 64.1 percent. According to the report, this decrease represents a stabilization within the industry.

That said, 32 percent of insurers in the study indicated that they would be maintaining essentially the same number of staff members throughout 2018. Another 10 percent had intentions to reduce the size of their staff this year. In 2017, 29 percent of insurers intended to maintain their staff size and only 6 percent had intended to attempt to reduce their team sizes.

This trend shows that the insurance industry hiring rate is evening out as time passes.

“We are seeing staffing and hiring expectations level out as the industry continues to stabilize,” explained Jacobson Group co-chief executive officer, Gregory P. Jacobson. “Anticipated increases in business volume and expansion into new markets continue to drive hiring demands.”

The insurance industry has created 105,500 new jobs since April 2011. The report said that figure represents a 7.4 percent increase in the number of positions at the various carriers. That said, the report also pointed out that one of the biggest challenges the industry is facing is filling those insurance jobs with qualified employees.

Among the 12 different insurance employment categories, each one came with a moderate or high difficulty rating for filling. Among the most difficult to fill were the actuarial, technology, executive and analytics category positions.

The report pointed to a number of reasons for these insurance industry hiring challenges, which included “increased staffing demands, a growing mid-level talent gap, impending retirements, virtually non-existent industry unemployment and a shallowing talent pool.”

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