Job opportunities abound with the majority of insurance businesses, especially smaller ones, looking for technology, sales, marketing and claims professionals according to an Aon labor survey.
The report by Jacobson Group and Ward Group, part of Aon Hewitt, found 77% of small insurance companies plan to hire people within a year.
Overall, 65% of corporations in the industry said they were looking to hire by the end of 2017, with most life and health companies seeking sales or marketing candidates while those in the P&C space are seeking tech-focused employees.
But the plentiful hiring landscape isn’t a result of insurers forecasting record profits, with revenue growth projections at their lowest level since 2012.
Though 70% expect net income will increase during 2017, that’s 17 points lower than in 2014.
Over half of the companies (53%) said a shift in market share was placing downward pressure on their revenue and just under a third (29%) said changes in pricing was why they were less optimistic about increased revenue this year: the life and health sector is the most pessimistic about revenue growth while P&C companies were more likely to expect greater returns.
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Instead, more business activity and new markets or expansion were listed as the main drivers of the need to hire by the survey’s respondents.
Contrary to naysayers and doomsday predictors, automation has evidently not wiped out all job prospects in the market.
That said, automation was the leading cause of layoffs (16%) and though only 6% of those surveyed said they expected to lose more employees than they would gain in 2017, that’s 5% higher than last year.
A “growing talent gap” and a “virtually non-existent industry unemployment” is creating a “shallow talent pool” according to the study.
Respondents said the hardest positions to fill were actuarial, analytics, and technology roles.
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