According to statistics released Dec. 4 by U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), for the month of October 2015, virtually every subsector of insurance industry employment was up, year over year, with many subsectors showing significant increases.
Compiled by the New York City-based Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.), the numbers show that property and casualty (P&C) carrier employment rose by 600 (+0.1%) for the 12 months ending in October 2015, to 522,800. Although P&C carrier employment had been rising for the past 18 months, it slipped during May through September 2015. It is now nearly back to where it was in October 2014, says I.I.I.
Agents and brokers appear to be doing well, too. According to the BLS numbers, the agent/broker segment gained 23,600 jobs in October 2015 vs. October 2014 (up 3.3%) to 745,700 — with 9,600 new hires in the month of October 2015 alone.
“This is by far the largest one-month gain in this segment in the last 25 years (the next highest was 6,200 in June 2000),” said Steven Weisbart, CLU, senior vice president and chief economist at I.I.I.
After losing jobs in the Great Recession (from 682,100 in the first month of the recession, December 2007, to 652,900 in the first month of recovery (July 2009) and on to a trough of 638,200 in September 2010, the segment has been fairly steadily gaining jobs and passed the pre-recession peak of 684,500 reached in July 2007, Weisbart noted. “From the recent trough through October 2015, this segment has gained 107,500 jobs.” 
(Source: Insurance Information Institute)
Other segments also show gains
The data shows that employment by life/annuity carriers rose in October 2015 vs. October 2014 (up 17,800, or 5.1%) to 366,700.
The health carrier segment has been gaining jobs quite steadily for decades, Weisbart pointed out. In October 2015 vs. October 2014, it rose 5.1% (up 25,300) to 525,500. He attributes at least some of the growth to “the flood of health insurance applications, purchases, and claims attributable to the Affordable Care Act [ACA], and some to population growth, but it is important to acknowledge that this rate of growth has been characteristic of this sector for decades — long before the ACA was proposed.”
The smaller industry segments also showed growth in October 2015. Reinsurance carrier employment in the United States rose 3.2% to 26,000 when compared with October 2014. Third-party administrators gained 2,100 jobs (+1.2%), bringing the October 2015 total to 176,300. Weisbart observed that this category has grown quite steadily for more than two decades, though not as fast as employment at medical expense insurers.
Claims adjusters were the only group to lose jobs in October 2015, according to BLS. Employment at independent claims-adjusting firms fell by 1,900 when compared with October 2015 (-3.6 %), bringing their total numbers down to 50,400.
Stay tuned to see what the numbers will show in the new year.
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Rosalie Donlon
Rosalie Donlon is the editor in chief of ALM's insurance and tax publications, including NU Property & Casualty magazine and NU PropertyCasualty360.com. You can contact her at [email protected].
