Employment in the broad US insurance industry may have added 3900 jobs in September, but left the industry with considerably fewer job gains than preliminarily seen just one month prior.
The September tally, if confirmed in a month’s time, would put the Q3 gain at 15,000 jobs, considerably less than the two month tally for July and August reported just one month prior, a monthly dataset from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed.
The August gain, revised down to 3100 from the heady 7600 initial estimate, was built on a notable uplift in hiring for P&C carriers, continued catch-up gains for life and health carriers, but sudden stagnation for the agencies and brokerages which had provided the bulk of the hiring throughout the pandemic period.
P&C carriers added 1300 jobs in September, the strongest single-month gain in a year’s time, the initial August detailed reading indicated.
Life and health carriers, which have only made up 40% of their pandemic-era job losses, may have added some 900 jobs in September, considerably below the running average to date in 2023. Direct life and health insurers, along with direct title carriers, are the only industry segments still below their pre-pandemic job counts.
Net hiring in agencies and brokerages came to a near stand-still in August, with an initial reading up neighbourhood 100 jobs from the prior month count, having shown little traction since a March-May surge.
A consecutive month of hiring has the US reinsurance sector pulling further away from its long-running hiring slump. Addition of some 1200 jobs since Q1 has the industry at its highest employment level since points in 2003.
For the broader US economy, total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 336,000 in the preliminary September reading, holding the unemployment measure flat at 3.8%. Job gains were said to have occurred in leisure and hospitality; government; health care; professional, scientific, and technical services; and social assistance.
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