US insurance headcount down, putting paid to 2022 hiring spree

Employment in the broad US insurance industry has lost traction, with data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showing the 2022 mad hiring spree more distant with each passing month. The industry may have shed as many as 4200 jobs in February, some one tenth of a percent of the industry's headcount.

While January employment sums were revised up from an initially bleak estimate, employment levels in the sub-sectors that had previously driven growth - direct P&C carriers as well as agencies and brokerages - is failing to find any new traction. Direct title insurers continue to suffer. Reinsurers even shed a few jobs. Only life and health carriers are picking up any slack.

Employment in agencies and brokerages, the sole source of job growth through much of the pandemic, was down by some 1100 in January, the third loss in the past six months, a period that had kicked off with an enormous bout of volatility in jobs numbers.

Brokerages and agencies now have 86,200 more employees than ahead of the pandemic (end-2019), never having lost more than a month or two worth of hiring for the pandemic.

Employment in direct P&C carriers may have fallen by circa 800 in January after having posted its first monthly loss since early 2021 just back in November last year. The decline in headcount at title insurers extended through its eleventh month and was down 11.6% year on year for January.

Headcounts in life and health carriers have been on a moderate rise since bottoming out at end-Q1 2022. The 3400 or 0.4% job increase in February is still amongst the first baby steps. Headcounts are 1.9% above the March 2022 bottom, but still 5.5% or nearly 53,000 jobs from the April 2020 peak.

February job losses, if confirmed, would represent only a 0.1% decline for the industry, but cut the 12M gain to a mere 1.2%, preliminary data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggested.

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