Insurance employers are taking their time when they recruit due to line managers being time-poor and operationally focused.
Employers are also more selective when they recruit and require candidates who possess a longer list of skills and experience.
They are even willing to consider candidates from overseas and will support visa applications, naturally once the local market offerings have been exhausted.
The focus is on securing revenue generating staff in permanent roles, but there are some fixed-term contracts in claims, underwriting and operational support to cover maternity leave, secondments or increases in work flow.
These are some of the predictions from Hay’s Quarterly Report for April-June 2015.
“In terms of specific skills in demand for April-June 2015, we’re seeing high demand for commercial brokers across all regions,” the report said.
“The internal transfer of staff to other branches within the same firm, the development of new product initiatives, and the resignation of employees for roles that are more senior or offer a higher salary or more accounts all add to turnover and vacancy activity in this area.”
The report said senior strategic operations managers and business improvement managers will also be in demand as a result of restructures and offshoring.
This, it said, “has led to a focus on re-engineering the business and gaining more market share.”
Claims professionals were still in high demand due to regular turnover as people progress their career out of the claims function and into other areas of business.
“In addition, an increasing number of companies are offering third party claims solutions, which adds to vacancies,” said the report.
The latest data from job search website Seek revealed a 40% increase in the number of job opportunities in both insurance and superannuation from February to March this year.
Auckland drove the industry growth with new job opportunities up 59% month on month with Canterbury following closely behind, up 42% compared with just 6% in Wellington.
Janet Faulding, general manager of Seek New Zealand, said the industry’s competitive average annual salary of $75,000 may explain the sector’s growing popularity amongst candidates.
This was demonstrated by a 17% year on year increase in the number of job applications in insurance and superannuation made on Seek in March, she told Fuseworks Media.
