Study: Insurance Industry More Optimistic About Hiring

A study of insurance industry hiring finds that companies are more optimistic than they were six months ago, with 44 percent of those surveyed indicating they expect to add staff during the next year.

The percentage of companies expecting to add staff was an 11.6 percent increase from the percentage expecting to do so in the previous Ward Group and Jacobson Group Insurance Labor Market Study six months ago.

The latest survey, released late last week and conducted in January, also found that 44 percent of those surveyed expect to maintain their staff size during the next 12 months, with 13 percent anticipating staff decreases, down from 15 percent who indicated they expected staff cuts in the previous study.

Of the top reasons given for anticipated staff increases during the next year, 30 percent cited business expansion, 26 percent cited anticipated increases in volume, 23 percent said they are understaffed and 15 percent said they planned to add staff to improve service.

Of those planning staff decreases, 20 percent cited automation as the reason, 16 percent said they are overstaffed, 15 percent cited reorganizations and 14 percent said they expected to cut staff because of anticipated decreases in volume.

The Ward-Jacobson study surveyed 106 companies, 82 percent of them property/casualty insurers and 18 percent life/health companies. It was the fourth such survey conducted by Chicago-based staffing and executive search firm Jacobson Group and Cincinnati-based consulting firm Ward Group.   

Filed by Rodd Zolkos of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

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