Staffing agencies in Connecticut: 593 locations, a search market worth noticing and the state's licence rules

This report is for Connecticut employers choosing an agency or search firm, job seekers, and B2B sellers whose customers are staffing and recruiting firms.

Connecticut staffing agencies in numbers

Source: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, for Connecticut, counting NAICS 56131 (Employment Placement Agencies and Executive Search Services) and NAICS 56132 (Temporary Help Services).

The split comes from the Census Bureau's 2023 state file. Temp help holds 89% of the employees because temp agencies are the employer of the people they place; Census defines the workers supplied to clients as "employees of the temporary help services establishment." Search firms are the reverse: candidates join the client, so the 864 employees are recruiters, researchers and partners, and their pay is far above anything else in the industry.

Size, and where the firms are

That gives 381 locations with 1 to 19 employees, 150 with 20 to 99 and 62 with 100 or more (the total less the smaller bands). Within temp help, 19 locations have 250 to 499 employees and four are larger, in classes the Census Bureau doesn't publish.

Census reports Connecticut by its nine planning regions rather than its old counties:

"Not reported (high-noise figure)" means the Census Bureau published the total but flagged that its confidentiality noise moved it by 5% or more. The statewide line is for employers without a fixed location in the state; here, 5,621 of its 5,626 employees are in temp help.

The two big regions do different work. The Capitol region is temp help country: 139 temp locations with 7,950 employees. Western Connecticut, which includes Stamford, Greenwich, Norwalk and Danbury, is where search clusters: 55 of the state's 103 executive search offices, paying $188,284,000 to 627 employees, about $300,000 a head.

Limits. These are establishments with paid employees, not companies; a firm with three offices counts three times, and independent recruiters without payroll aren't counted. Professional employer organizations (NAICS 561330, 14 locations with 3,243 employees) are excluded. Employment is the week of March 12, 2023.

Who needs a licence in Connecticut

Connecticut General Statutes section 31-130 sets three cases:

The Department of Labor lists sections 31-129 to 31-131 among the workplace laws it administers. For temp agencies, the protections come from general employment law: the agency is the employer, so ask for its workers' compensation and general liability certificates naming your company. The state minimum wage is $16.94 in 2026 and $17.48 from 1 January 2027, according to the Department of Labor, so price any contract that crosses the new year in two parts.

Agency, search firm or RPO?

Hiring in volume raises a question smaller employers don't face: whether to pay agencies per hire or outsource recruiting altogether. Connecticut is home to one listed company that does the second.

Star Equity, formerly Hudson Global, is a diversified holding company with four segments. Its Business Services segment earned $68.4 million from RPO customers and $71.3 million from contracting customers in 2025, and the company reports about 1,200 employees worldwide, about 110 of them in the US within Business Services.

Illustrative example. The company, fees and volumes are invented to show the arithmetic.

Housatonic Instruments (housatonic.example) in Danbury expects 40 professional hires next year at an average salary of $90,000.

The RPO's fixed $300,000 a year pays for itself once the per-hire saving ($18,000 less $3,000, or $15,000) covers it: at 20 hires. Below about 20 hires a year, agencies are cheaper; above it, the RPO is, provided it fills the roles as well.

How to choose and vet a Connecticut agency

1. Name the job and the model: temp or temp-to-hire for shifts and cover, direct hire for permanent staff, retained or contingency search for leaders, RPO for steady volume, a PEO to run HR for staff you already employ.
2. Check the licence or registration if the firm recruits for a fee, and insurance certificates if it employs temps.
3. Get every fee in writing: bill rate and markup, conversion fee, search fee and its payment stages, replacement guarantee.
4. Ask for two references for the same kind of role, and for a search firm, the off-limits terms: which companies it won't recruit from because they're clients.

Job seekers should know the reverse: an agency that charges you a fee must hold a Connecticut licence, while most agencies are paid by employers and charge you nothing.

Selling to Connecticut staffing firms

The search firms are the most valuable small accounts in the state: few people, high revenue per head, and a partner who can sign on the spot. Use the American Staffing Association directory and CBIA's member listings to build the list, then read each firm's site for its practice areas. Bebop researches each firm in a list and suggests the angle to open with, which matters when the buyer is a partner with little time. For the companies they recruit for, see manufacturing companies in Connecticut.

Subject: Pay data for [firm]'s [role] finalists

Hi [first name],

I saw [firm] is running a search for a [role] at a [industry] company. At the offer stage, the client usually asks whether the package is in line with the market, and the answer lands on you.

We supply current pay and bonus data for senior roles by industry and region, with sources you can show the client.

Would a benchmark for this search be useful?

[Your name]

Sources for names and checks

Next step: compare a state with a much stricter temp law in the report on staffing agencies in New Jersey.