While Wall Street expressed disappointment over national employment numbers, the U.S. insurance industry received some good news in the seasonally adjusted data released Oct. 2 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics -- though the industry was still down slightly in employment. The positive note was that the steep decline noted in the previous month's report, now adjusted by more up-to-date data, is reported as much less than first thought.

The August numbers had originally shown a major decline of 12,800 jobs to 2.240 million on industry payrolls. But the bureau is now reporting the decline was really only 6,900 to 2.250 million -- much sunnier than the earlier news. The September numbers show a current 2.249 million jobs -- down just 1,000 jobs from the newly adjusted August total. However, in the past 12 months, the insurance industry has lost 59,000 jobs -- 2.6% -- slipping for 11 consecutive months.

In the overall U.S. economy, the September statistics showed 263,000 fewer jobs than the previous month -- a slight acceleration in losses, though the August number was actually adjusted upward. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the U.S. unemployment rate has doubled to 9.8% -- up from 9.7% last month -- leaving a current 15.1 million looking for work. The White House has regularly predicted that the economy could bottom out at 10% unemployment. Year-over-year, national payrolls have dropped by 4.2% -- significantly more than the insurance sector.

Total insurance industry payrolls are reported each month on a seasonably adjusted basis, along with the current month's nonfarm payrolls. Separately, data by industry segment ? broken out by various insurance carrier and noncarrier categories ? are available only on an unadjusted basis for the prior month.

Based on just-released August 2009 data, just one insurance sector saw employment growth in a year-over-year comparison: health insurance, which has exhibited steady strength. Health was up 2.8% over its 2008 payroll number, totalling 462,200 jobs, though it was down very slightly from the previous month.

Life insurers were the only employers up slightly from July to August, but the year-over-year number for that segment was down 2.9% to 346,300 total jobs. Reinsurance was down 500 jobs in the past 12 months, now totalling 28,500. Property/casualty was down 2.8% since August 2008 to 476,300. Agents and brokers, the largest category in insurance, was down to 648,500 jobs -- a 3.4% drop in 12 months. Third-party administrators have declined 6.6% year-over-year, now at 122,600 employees. Claims adjusters have seen a steep 13.7% decline since August 2008, now totalling 46,600. And title insurance continued its difficulties, sliding 1,000 jobs from July to August, and reporting a 15.6% decline year-over-year to total 68,400 workers.

As the number of workers declined across the industry, average weekly earnings for nonsupervisory positions were mostly up from August 2008 to August 2009, except for third-party administrators, who were paid $766.46, which was down 0.3% from the year before, but is up month-to-month.

Life insurer pay was up 8.4% to $1,008.25 a week; health insurers were up 4.3% to $932.69; title insurers were up 2.9% to $846.69; reinsurance gained a sharp 18.3% to $849.58; agents and brokers saw a 6.3% boost to $779.76; claims adjusters were up 4.5% to $908.22; and property/casualty was up 4.4% to $1,015.10 -- the highest pay of all the sectors.