February Insurance Job Market Observations
February Insurance Job Market Observations
Another cold blast and more snow continue to frustrate many but the insurance job market stays hot as the demand for talent has intensified. The shortage of well trained talent is costing employers opportunities to write new business or sell other services and products nationally. The inability to identify and recruit top talent is the most frequently mentioned issue human resource professionals have shared with our team in February. The upside of this for both the employers and the talent desired is the sense of urgency has fostered a creative solutions mind set and flexibility in negotiations is now common practice.
The Property & Casualty Insurance Industry sector has twice as many open insurance jobs as all the other sectors combined. These other sectors are up in open insurance jobs and include Life, Benefits, and Personal Lines. The North East continues to lead the nation with open insurance jobs but all three trailing areas are close behind and up from last year. Midwest comes in second, South East and West round out the four regions we track.
The need for talent is strongest in commercial underwriting at all levels from executive, senior leadership, or technical levels. The lack of trained professionals continues to be the challenge identified as the reason for this demand. Creating a succession plan without talent is still impossible. The sales and marketing area on the carrier side is the next strongest area. Agency/Brokerage service and technical needs is the next area of most open insurance jobs. This strong demand continues to create opportunities for employers to explore temporary contracts or temporary to permanent options. The need to train or cross train talent is starting to become a reality rather than a great idea.
As we look forward to warmer weather we are thankful for the ongoing relationships and new client relationships that this demand for top talent has provided.
All the best,
Mike McDonough & the GSR team