OVERCOMINGHIRING

There simply aren't enough workers in the pipeline to keep abundant talent flowing. “We lost a lot of people out of the labor market, either because of COVID-19 illness or death and also mothers who have decided it's not worth it and their priorities are elsewhere," St. John explains. “The baby boomer generation is huge and they're retiring, and we don't have the birth rate behind them. Gen Z is just not large enough to replace the departing boomers and is looking for a different employment relationship than prior generations. We've got what we got."

And if it's tight for the U.S. workforce at large, hiring in the insurance industry is even harder. Unemployment in the insurance industry has historically been lower than the national average, according to Jacobson and Aon Ward's “Q3 2022 U.S. Insurance Labor Market Study." In November 2022, the national unemployment rate was 3.7% but the unemployment rate in the insurance industry was 1.5%.

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To attract talent, agencies need to adapt, not wait. Luckily, the labor market's challenges present some surprising opportunities for the independent agency channel.

“In times like these, smaller organizations, like many independent agencies, actually have some levers that they can pull to outcompete highervolume recruiters for the best talent available in the labor market," says Ted Kinney, vice president of research and development at Talogy, a Big “I" Hires partner. “It's a candidate's market. And if you're a high-volume recruiter, you can't give candidates white glove service."

“There are some things that I really like about this labor market," Kinney continues. “One of the things that I stress all the time in labor market conditions like this is that you have to think about your selection process as a bidirectional decisionmaking process, where it's not just about you making decisions about candidates, but