Staffing agencies in Kansas City: two states, two wage floors and 376 agency locations

This report is for Kansas City employers choosing an agency, job seekers on either side of the state line, and B2B sellers whose customers are staffing firms.

Kansas City's staffing market in Census data

The figures cover the Kansas City, MO-KS Metro Area (CBSA 28140), 14 counties across two states, and two industry codes: NAICS 56131 (Employment Placement Agencies and Executive Search Services) and NAICS 56132 (Temporary Help Services). Source: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023.

The second row splits into 52 employment placement agencies and 50 executive search offices in the Census Bureau's metro file. Temp help carries 96% of the employees because a temp agency employs the people it sends to clients: Census defines temporary help services as supplying workers who "are employees of the temporary help services establishment." A forklift driver working at a Kansas City, Kansas warehouse through an agency shows up here, not under warehousing. Placement and search firms count only their own staff.

How big they are

The Census Bureau doesn't publish the classes from 50 employees up for the two codes combined. Subtracting the published cells from the total leaves 83 locations with 50 or more employees, and the temp help row accounts for 80 of them: 33 with 50 to 99 employees, 31 with 100 to 249, 13 with 250 to 499 and 3 with 500 to 999. The other three are placement or search offices whose class isn't published.

Where they are: more in Kansas

Where an employee count is missing, the Census Bureau published one but flagged it as high-noise: the noise it adds to protect confidentiality changed it by 5% or more. The two Kansas counties hold 201 locations against 171 in the four Missouri counties listed. The county file breaks Johnson County's 183 down further: 129 temp help locations, which reported 6,581 employees, and 54 placement and search offices, including 32 of the metro's 50 executive search firms. Clay County, north of the river, averages about 47 employees per location, near the metro average of 45.

These counts are establishments with paid employees, not companies. A national agency with four branches counts four times, and recruiters working alone without payroll aren't counted. Professional employer organizations (NAICS 561330, 12 more locations) are left out, and employment is the week of March 12, 2023.

Kinds of agency and when to use each

The two-state rules

• Minimum wage. The US Department of Labor lists Missouri's minimum wage at $15.00 an hour and Kansas's at $7.25. The floor follows the work site, not the agency's office, so a Kansas agency placing someone in Missouri pays the Missouri rate.
• PEO registration. Missouri law (RSMo 285.715) bars anyone from providing or advertising professional employer services in the state without registering with the Secretary of State, and its definitions exclude temporary help services from counting as a PEO. Kansas has required PEOs to register with its Secretary of State since 1 July 2025: $250, renewed by 15 October each year, with registered PEOs listed publicly.
• Agencies themselves. We found no licence or registry for general temp or placement agencies in either state, so verify the business and its insurance yourself.

How to vet a Kansas City agency

1. Tell the agency the site address, and ask which state's wage, tax and workers' compensation rules it will apply.
2. Get the pay rate and markup as separate lines, plus overtime and conversion fees.
3. Ask for certificates of workers' compensation and general liability naming your company.
4. Confirm the business on the Kansas or Missouri Secretary of State's business search, matching the name on your contract.
5. If it's a PEO, check it's on the Kansas registered list or ask for its Missouri registration.
6. Pilot with a small crew and call two references at similar sites.

Worked example: one assignment, two sides of the line

Illustrative example. The company, the Kansas pay rate and the markup are invented; the Missouri pay rate is the state minimum.

Blue River Fulfillment (blueriver.example) needs 15 packers for 26 weeks at 40 hours, 1,040 hours each, at either its Lenexa, Kansas building or its Riverside, Missouri building. Its agency proposes $14.50 an hour with a 40% markup.

The proposed $14.50 is legal in Lenexa and unlawful in Riverside. At the Missouri floor, the assignment costs $728 more per worker and $10,920 more for the crew. In practice, check what local warehouses actually pay: if they pay $17.00 on both sides, the floor stops mattering and the market rate sets the price.

For job seekers

Both sides of the metro have public workforce organizations that run hiring events and job-seeker services: Workforce Partnership for Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties in Kansas, and the Full Employment Council, the public workforce system for the Missouri side. Register with agencies that already place people in the work you want, and ask whether the assignment is in Kansas or Missouri, since that sets your minimum wage.

Selling to Kansas City staffing agencies

Agencies that work on both sides of the line carry two of everything: two state unemployment tax accounts, two wage floors, two sets of new-hire reporting. That's the opening for payroll, tax and compliance sellers, and it's sharpest at the 83 locations with 50 or more employees, almost all temp help branches. The 237 locations with fewer than 20 employees are owner-run, mostly recruiting and search offices in Johnson County, and buy candidate data, job advertising and applicant tracking.

A practical plan: pull the American Staffing Association directory for Kansas and Missouri, keep firms with Kansas City addresses, and tag each by the side of the line where it posts most jobs. Agencies posting on both sides are the compliance prospects. Bebop can build that list from a description and draft the first email to each agency. For the employers driving temp demand, see largest employers in Kansas City.

Subject: Kansas and Missouri pay rules on one payroll

Hi [first name],

I saw [agency] is filling roles in both [Kansas town] and [Missouri town] this month. With Missouri's minimum at $15.00 and Kansas's at $7.25, a single pay table across the metro is easy to get wrong for one side.

We set pay floors by work-site address and flag any timecard below the floor before payroll runs.

Would it help to run last month's timecards through it?

[Your name]

Local sources

Next step: see the employers behind the demand in the report on companies in Kansas City.