Staffing agencies in Akron: 130 locations in Summit and Portage counties, pay, and placement guarantees

This page is for job seekers in the Akron area looking for agency work, employers deciding how to use agencies for temporary and permanent hiring, and B2B sellers who sell to staffing firms. The larger market to the north is covered in staffing agencies in Cleveland.

Akron staffing agencies by the numbers

US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, Akron, OH Metro Area (CBSA 10420), NAICS 56131 (Employment Placement Agencies and Executive Search Services) and 56132 (Temporary Help Services):

Temp help is 91% of the employees. That's the nature of the business: Census defines temporary help as supplying workers to clients, and the workers "are employees of the temporary help services establishment," so the 5,490 are mostly people working at Akron-area plants, warehouses and offices on agency payrolls.

Size and county

The Census Bureau publishes only some size classes for the two codes combined: 39 locations have 1 to 4 employees, 14 have 5 to 9 and 22 have 20 to 49; the rest are not published. The temp help row is complete: 20 locations with 1 to 4 employees, 10 with 5 to 9, 18 with 10 to 19, 17 with 20 to 49, 17 with 50 to 99, 13 with 100 to 249 and 3 with 250 to 499. None has 500 or more.

The county rows add to 129 locations; the metro figure has one more placement office than the two county rows show. Summit has 88% of the locations. All 15 in Portage County are temp help.

Limits. County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees, not companies, so a firm with offices in Akron and Cuyahoga Falls counts twice, and self-employed recruiters are left out. Employment is one week in March 2023. The metro's five PEO locations are in another code.

If you're looking for work

1. Pick agencies by the work they place: light industrial and warehouse, call center and office, healthcare, or skilled trades. ClearlyRated lists 24 Akron agencies with talent ratings.
2. Ask about the path to permanent. Many listings here are temp-to-hire: ask how many hours before the client can hire you and what the permanent pay would be.
3. Know the floor. Ohio's minimum wage in 2026 is $11.00 an hour for employers with annual gross receipts of $405,000 or more, and it's adjusted each year.
4. The agency is your employer while you're on assignment: it pays you, withholds taxes and covers you for workers' compensation.
5. Expect drug screens and background checks for many plant and warehouse jobs, and never pay an agency to be placed.

For employers: the Ohio pieces

Ohio's workers' compensation system is run by the Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC), and a temp agency, as the employer of its temps, carries their coverage on its own BWC policy. Ask for proof of that coverage. Ohio's PEO rules require co-employers of a client's own staff to register with the BWC, but they exclude temporary staffing agencies, so there's no state staffing registration to look up for an Akron temp firm.

Drug testing is where Ohio adds something specific. The BWC's Substance Use Prevention and Recovery program (Ohio Administrative Code 4123-17-58) offers bonuses and grants to employers that apply by the deadline and put its elements in place, including accident-analysis training for supervisors, online accident-analysis reporting for lost-time claims and a written workplace policy on alcohol and drugs. If your site has safety-sensitive jobs, ask agencies how their testing and policy line up with yours, and whether they take part themselves.

Worked example: what a placement guarantee is worth

Illustrative example. The company, salary, fee and guarantee terms are invented to show the arithmetic.

Cuyahoga Falls Polymer (cfpolymer.example) hires a maintenance technician at $62,000 through a direct hire agency charging 18%: an $11,160 fee. Two agencies offer different 90-day guarantees: one replaces the hire at no extra fee, the other refunds the fee pro rata for the days left.

A refund is worth most early, and it lets you rehire another way; a replacement is worth more if you trust the agency to fill the role again quickly. Ask four things either way: does the guarantee restart for the replacement, must the invoice be paid on time to keep it, are layoffs and role changes excluded, and does it cover hires who never start.

Selling to Akron staffing agencies

With 130 locations, Akron is a territory you can map in a week. The temp branches buy drug and alcohol testing, background checks, safety training, timekeeping, workers' compensation programs and recruiting ads; testing providers have a natural opening because so many plant roles require screens and the BWC program rewards structured policies. Start with ClearlyRated's 24 Akron listings, the ASA directory and the Greater Akron Chamber member directory, then read job posts to separate plant and warehouse staffers from office specialists. If you'd rather not build it by hand, Bebop finds agencies that match a description and gives the reason for each. How to build a prospect list walks through the steps.

Subject: Same-day drug screens for [agency]'s plant starts

Hi [first name],

I saw [agency] is filling [number] [role, e.g. machine operator] jobs at plants around [town]. When a client needs a negative screen before day one, the wait for results is often what pushes a start back a week.

We [what you do, e.g. run on-site rapid screens at your branch with lab confirmation within 24 hours].

Would it help to price one start group?

[Your name]

Local sources

Next step: compare Akron with its larger neighbor in staffing agencies in Cleveland.