Insights on insurance’s labour market 2022-2025: An industry snapshot series

Following our update on unemployment and recruitment trends in 2022, we’ve dived deeper to analyse the trends specifically related to the insurance industry.

A short summary of today’s insurance recruitment trends:

• SEEK job ads in the insurance & superannuation sectors grew consistently throughout 2022
• Insurance candidate availability is low today compared with the last five years for all insurance roles
• Job types in high demand include Assessment, Brokerage, Claims and Underwriting
• Insurance job salaries have grown by 4.1% since late 2021
• Over the next three years, professional occupations will see the largest growth at 14.7%, whilst clerical and administrative occupations will see growth of 3.9%

As we stated in our earlier update, employers will continue to face candidate shortages for another two years before market conditions improve. In addition to the talent shortage, there are factors unique to the insurance industry that employers should consider when planning their workforce.

Insurance jobs and skills at risk of technical change

Employment growth is expected to be weakest in jobs that are affected by globalisation and technological change. These include clerical and administrative workers, such as call centre employees and personal assistants, where there is routine work that can be automated.

The National Skills Commission has identified non-routine and cognitive jobs and tasks that will be in high demand in the years up to 2025. The skills they found from these have been categorised into what they call, the ‘ Four C’s ’, which include:

• Care skills, that respond to demographic and health challenges
• Computing skills, which are specialised technical skills responding to the digital landscape
• Cognitive abilities, including higher order and advanced reasoning skills that are difficult to automate
• Communication skills, that allow employees to collaborate and engage within the workplace

Positions that require the above skills, such as broking and technical roles, will be the hardest to fill over the next three years, as candidates with the required skillsets for these positions will be in high demand.

Business and operations skills

Demand for business and operational skills is predicted to grow slower than usual. Although, some skills within this set are predicted to have strong growth and high demand, including:

• Establish organisational policies or programs (11%)
• Operational specifications design and reporting (13%)
• Develop business or market strategies (10.5%)

Increased competition for candidates from other industries

Whilst candidate shortages are no new challenge for the insurance industry, employers will continue to have increased recruitment difficulty over the next three years as they face heightened competition from other industries for job seekers.

When employers have struggled to find talent with insurance experience in the past, they were able to look at job seekers from other industries with similar skillsets that transfer well into insurance. Whilst this is still a great method of sourcing candidates into the insurance industry, it is much more difficult to convince candidates to leave their current industry when there is an abundance of opportunities available there as well.

As a result, insurance employers will need to look at other strategies to attract talent amid candidate shortages.

Graduate recruitment

Over the next three years, more than 90% of jobs in Australia will require post-secondary education. Most jobs in the insurance industry fall into this category, with some positions requiring insurance certifications, and others requiring a university degree.

However, as there are no direct university pathways into the insurance industry, graduate recruitment for these roles that require a tertiary education can be difficult. Our graduate program, Future Insure , has been instrumental in addressing this challenge by introducing graduates to the insurance industry and connecting them with insurance employers.

When your business is hiring university graduates, don’t focus too much on what degree the graduate has come from. Instead, look at their attitude, personality, and skills, to see if these will be a good fit for your business and the insurance industry. It’s also a good idea to conduct skills and/or personality testing to see if they are a good match for you!

Create recruitment strategies for young people

The youth unemployment rate, which covers people aged between 15 and 24, is currently at 8.4%. This is more than double the overall unemployment rate of 3.5%. As a strategy to overcome candidate shortages, insurance employers should focus on recruitment for this age group and create programs within their business that attract young people.

School leavers are a huge opportunity for insurance employers to fill roles that don’t require a university degree. If you don’t already have a program for school leavers in place, create one that combines on-the-job training with a qualification in insurance. Your new employee will start in an entry-level role, and progress through your company as they complete their qualification.

Internships are another great way to attract young people into your business. Offering a short internship to university students or graduates will give you a chance to see if your intern is a good fit for your business, whilst introducing them to insurance, and seeing if insurance is a good fit for them or not! If everything goes well, offer your intern permanent employment, and be sure to accommodate any study they may have left with flexible work arrangements.

If you’d like to learn more about the insurance labour market and how this impacts your business, fill out the form on this page, and one of our specialist consultants will be in touch.

Sources: SEEK, SEEK Industry Insights Insurance & Superannuation, 2022; National Skills Commission, Projecting employment to 2025, 2022; Australian Bureau of Statistics, Labour Force, Australia, 2022; National Skills Commission, Labour Market Insights, Insurance Agents, 2022.