Edward Jones Advisor Headcount Ticks Up

The number of Edward Jones advisors grew slightly in the first quarter, which ended March 31, from 18,772 on March 25, 2022, to 18,850, according to a 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that was made Tuesday by The Jones Financial Cos.

Edward Jones also reported a lower attrition rate of 5.2% for Q1 2023 compared with 5.6% in March 2022, the filing showed.

The company, meanwhile, has a goal of hiring about 1,500 financial advisors by the end of 2023, it said in a statement provided to reporters, also on Tuesday.

To help achieve that, the firm said it “continues to evolve a variety of branch team support roles to provide flexibility and choice to financial advisors as they consider how best to build their branch teams, while simultaneously offering meaningful career advancement and opportunity to individuals who may be interested in transitioning to the role of financial advisor.”

Edward Jones is looking to significantly expand its focus on teams, the company announced in June 2022. By the end of 2023, it planned to give all its financial advisors the option to share a branch office with another advisor. The move was “designed to offer more flexibility and choice” to its advisors, who manage $1.7 trillion in client assets, and their branch support members, the firm said in a news release at the time.

“At Edward Jones, we remain focused on our strategy to grow and support branch team success, which in turn fuels the success of our clients, colleagues and the communities we serve,” Don Aven, principal of branch team market optimization at Edward Jones, said in a statement on Tuesday.