Staffing agencies in Illinois: 2,196 locations, the state registry and what equal benefits cost after 720 hours

This report covers Illinois as a whole, with a focus on what changes outside Chicago: employers and job seekers in Rockford, Peoria, Springfield, Bloomington and the Metro East, analysts sizing the state, and B2B sellers planning a territory. The Chicago metro has its own report on staffing agencies in Chicago.

Illinois staffing agencies by the numbers

US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, State of Illinois, NAICS 56131 (Employment Placement Agencies and Executive Search Services) and 56132 (Temporary Help Services):

Every size class is published at state level. In broader bands, 1,282 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 475 have 20 to 99 and 439 have 100 or more.

Why the average is almost 100 employees

Two reasons. First, temp agencies employ the people they place: Census defines the workers supplied by temporary help services as "employees of the temporary help services establishment," so the 195,433 temp help employees are mostly people working at clients' sites. Second, many of them are paid from central offices that have no county. The Census Bureau puts employers "without a fixed location within a state (or of unknown county location)" in a statewide category and notes that employment services firms may pay workers out of a single payroll office.

"High-noise": the Census Bureau flags figures that the noise it adds for confidentiality changed by 5% or more; several county totals in both groups carry that flag, so we don't add them up. The county rows account for 1,972 establishments and the statewide row 165; the remaining 59 aren't in any county row. The statewide group holds 51% of Illinois's staffing employees, and its 156 temp help records include 41 of the state's 43 establishments with 1,000 or more employees. Downstate, the largest county groups are Sangamon (46), Winnebago (37, with 1,580 employees), McLean (33, with 1,392), Madison (24, with 1,910) and Peoria (24, with 1,465).

Other limits. These are establishments with paid employees, not companies, and self-employed recruiters aren't counted. Employment is one week in March 2023. PEOs have their own code (NAICS 56133) and aren't included.

Illinois law: the registry and the worker protections

Illinois's Day and Temporary Labor Services Act (820 ILCS 175) covers agencies supplying day and temporary laborers; IDOL notes that agencies staffing only clerical or professional workers may be exempt. What it requires, in the order a client meets it:

The registry is the starting point. IDOL's list as of 1 October 2026 has 1,151 records: 469 agencies and 682 branches. Of those with Illinois addresses, 716 are in the Chicago-area counties and 184 elsewhere, led by Winnebago (19), Madison (15), McLean (14), Coles (13), and Champaign, LaSalle and Kankakee (10 each). Another 251 records, mostly company headquarters, have addresses outside Illinois. A separate IDOL license list under the Private Employment Agencies Act had 50 licenses as of 15 January 2026, mostly talent, modeling and domestic or home care agencies.

For job seekers, the Act means: you shouldn't be charged for the ride to a job site, the client must give you a record of your hours, and after 720 hours at one client you're owed comparable pay and benefits.

Worked example: pricing the 720-hour benefits rule

Illustrative example. The company, wages, benefit costs and markup are invented to show the arithmetic.

Prairie State Plastics (prairiestate.example) in Peoria County uses temps on a line where its lowest-paid comparable employee earns $20.50 an hour. The temps don't get the company's benefits, so after 720 hours the agency pays their hourly average cash equivalent, worked out over 2,080 hours a year:

So the temp's hourly pay after 720 hours is at least $20.50 + $4.64 = $25.14. At a 35% markup, the bill rate moves from $24.30 (on $18.00 pay) to $33.94. If the company instead hires the worker at 720 hours, the same hour costs about $26.71 ($25.14 plus 7.65% employer FICA on the $20.50 wage), $7.23 less, or $7,230 per 1,000 hours. For a long-term role, plan the conversion before hour 720, and read the agency contract for conversion fees.

Selling to Illinois staffing agencies

The Act creates work that agencies have to document: registration renewals per branch, comparator pay and benefit calculations at 720 hours, transport compliance and records. Compliance, payroll and timekeeping sellers have a clear opening, and the 165 statewide payroll records point to where those decisions sit for multi-site firms. Downstate, the registry gives you named branches by address in every county, which most states don't. Download it, group branches by company, then read job posts to sort light industrial staffers from office and healthcare firms. Grouping 1,151 registry records into companies is tedious; Bebop finds agencies that match a description and explains each match. How to build a prospect list covers sorting and scoring the result.

Subject: 720-hour comparator rates across [agency]'s Illinois clients

Hi [first name],

[Agency] has [number] branches on IDOL's registry, and every long assignment needs a comparator pay rate and a benefits cash equivalent from the client by hour 720.

We [what you do, e.g. track hours per worker per client and request comparator data from clients automatically at 600 hours].

Worth a look at how many of your current assignments are past 600 hours?

[Your name]

Sources for names and rules

Next step: see the Illinois side of the St. Louis market in staffing agencies in St. Louis.