Editor's note: This article first appeared on iii.organd is reprinted here with their permission. Click here for the original post.

The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of LaborStatistics (BLS) just published data as of January 2015 ondetailed insurance industry employment, and the I.I.I. website contains updated multi-decadetrend data in chart form. (The insurance industry/sector-specificdata are not seasonally adjusted and are one month behind thenational data; accordingly, the report released on March 6 providesnational data for February 2015 and industry/sector-specific datafor January 2015.)

Related: Insurance industry gained jobs in December2014

Data for the last few months are preliminary and are oftenrevised later, but revisions are usually small. The latest reportalso changes the numbers for many prior months due to arecalculation of benchmark employment levels. The I.I.I. slidesshow employment trends for property/casualty (P/C), life, health(mainly medical expense) insurers, reinsurers, agents and brokers,claims adjusters and third-party administrators.

In January 2015, on a year-over-year basis, virtually everysubsector of insurance industry employment was up, with manysubsectors rising solidly. Even life carrier employment, which hasgenerally trended downward, rose.

P/C & life/annutiy carriers

P/C carrier employment fell by 1,000, or -0.2%, in January 2015vs. December 2014, the second small down month in a row, but thisfollowed a sharp rise in November vs. October (up 2.600). For the12 months ending in January 2015, P/C carrier employment rose by10,000, or 1.9% to 523,500. P/C carrier employment has generallybeen rising for the last 12 months and is now back to where it wasin the fourth quarter of 2012.

Employment by life/annuity carriers rose in January 2015 vs.January 2014 (up 11,000, or 3.2%) to 354,000. Life/annuity carrieremployment stayed in a range of 340,000, plus or minus 2,000, forall of 2013 and most of 2014, but it broke out of that corridor, onthe upside, in June 2014. In prior years it was higher—in 2010, forexample, it was over 370,000 for the first half of the year andeven though sinking in the second half topped 355,000 in everymonth but December. Life/annuity carrier employment has not fallenfor nine consecutive months (and rose in eight of those months), soit possible that the long downward trend is ending, although thisis still too small a sample to be conclusive.

Health carrier, agent/broker & smaller industrysegments

The health carrier segment has been gaining jobs quite steadilyfor decades. In January 2015 vs. January 2014 it rose sharply (up27,200, or 5.7%) to 508,100. At least some of this growth isundoubtedly connected with the flood of health insuranceapplications, purchases and claims attributable to the AffordableCare Act, and some to population growth.

The agent/broker segment gained 32,900 jobs in January 2015 vs.January 2014 (up 4.7%) to 726,900. After losing jobs in the GreatRecession (from 682,100 in the first month of the recession,December 2007, to 652,900 in the first month of recovery, July2009, and on to a trough of 638,200 in September 2010) the segmenthas been fairly steadily gaining jobs and has now passed thepre-recession peak of 684,500 reached in July 2007.

Among the smaller industry segments, reinsurance carrieremployment in the U.S. fell by 900 to 24,900 in January 2015 vs.January 2014. Claims adjusting employment on a year-over-year basisfor January 2015 fell by 3,100 to 50,500. Year-over-year employmentin the category of third-party administration of insurance fundsrose by 11,400 (+6.9%) to 177,100. This category has grown quitesteadily for over two decades, though not as fast as employment atmedical expense insurers. It was set back slightly by the GreatRecession but has generally added jobs since then.

Related: Insurance agent ranks impressively high on the listof 25 best business jobs for 2015