US insurance industry may have added over 8000 jobs in April

The broad US insurance industry may have added an eye-opening 8100 jobs in April after stronger than previously reported gains in March, potentially pushing a half-year hiring spree to a 20,000 net job gain, preliminary data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicated.

The heavy April gains, if confirmed in next month's data release, would represent the tenth month of gains over the past year, a period in which some 43,000 jobs were added across the industry. But it could also represent some seasonality: April has been the hottest month as the industry has recovered jobs lost in the pandemic: April 2023 brought a 14,600 net gain; April 2022 25,500.

Trends through March, for which BLS provided the usual month-delayed break-down by sub-segment, showed a well-known trend:  brokerages and agencies have kept hiring while employment at carriers has stagnated or slipped: above pre-pandemic levels for P&C carriers, well below for life & health. 

Brokerages and agencies may have added 1700 jobs net in April, bringing the 12M gain to 27,200, well over half the total industry gain. The segment only ever had one real month of pandemic job losses in April 2020. Since then, brokerages and agencies have posted net job gains of 182,400 with six months of gains for every one month of net job losses.

Direct P&C carriers may have suffered their fifth straight month of net job losses in March, dropping another estimated 800 jobs to bring the five month losing streak to 4300, but leaving total employment still near a 20-year high within the two-year stabilization range hit after the post-pandemic recovery.

Life, health and medical carriers may have gained a handful of jobs net in April, but have only ever attempted to bounce back from massive pandemic-era job losses in anaemic or volatile fashion. Employment in the group remains 44,500 below the pre-pandemic peak and only 22,400 or 2.5% above the pandemic low from March 2022. 

For the broader US economy, total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 175,000 in April and the unemployment rate held nearly flat at 3.9%, the BLS said. Job gains were said to have occurred in health care, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing.

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