Staffing agencies in Seattle: 621 offices, TrueBlue's home market and a patchwork of minimum wages

This report is for Puget Sound employers choosing an agency, job seekers comparing agencies, and B2B sellers whose customers are staffing and search firms.

Seattle-area staffing agencies in numbers

Source: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metro Area (CBSA 42660). It counts two industries: NAICS 56131 (Employment Placement Agencies and Executive Search Services) and NAICS 56132 (Temporary Help Services).

Why the headcount is large, and where it sits

Temp agencies employ the people they place, so the workers on assignment at Puget Sound warehouses, offices and labs are counted in staffing. That's why temp help holds 94% of the employees. Executive search is the opposite: 59 offices, 276 people, and about $153,000 in payroll per employee.

"Not reported" means the Census Bureau published the total but flagged it as high-noise: the confidentiality noise changed it by 5% or more. The temp help rows are low-noise, though, and they're striking. Pierce County's 82 temp offices report 8,027 employees, about 98 each; King County's 320 average about 52 and Snohomish County's 61 about 56. Read the Pierce figure with care: the Census Bureau notes that employment services firms may pay many workers from a single payroll office, which places them in that office's county, and Pierce is home to TrueBlue's headquarters.

How big they are

In broader bands, 384 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 148 have 20 to 99 and 89 have 100 or more, the last derived as the total less the smaller bands because the top classes aren't published for the two codes combined. The temp rows show 60 temp offices with 100 to 249 employees, 21 with 250 to 499 and 4 with 500 to 999.

These are establishments with paid employees, not companies; self-employed recruiters and professional employer organizations (NAICS 56133, 12 more establishments) aren't included.

The public staffing company headquartered here

TrueBlue's 10-K for the year ended 28 December 2025 says it connected about 291,000 people with work and served about 53,000 clients that year, with about 3,500 full-time-equivalent staff of its own.

Washington and city rules

Worked example: one job, five pay floors

Illustrative example. The company and markup are invented; the 2026 minimum wages are those published by the Washington Department of Labor and Industries.

Rainier Parts (rainierparts.example) needs 10 temps for a 40-hour week of inventory work and has sites in five cities. The agency pays each city's minimum and bills a 40% markup. Several cities set rates by employer size, and for a temp the employer is the agency, so this example assumes a large agency.

The same week costs $2,604, or 27%, more in Burien than in Tacoma before any difference in skill or demand. Ask the agency to quote by site, and check whether a quote from last year has been updated for January's rates. SeaTac has its own rate as well, but only for hospitality and transportation employers.

How to vet an agency

1. Check the entity on the Secretary of State's Corporations and Charities system and the Department of Revenue's business lookup.
2. Read the agency's current job postings: in Washington they should show a pay range and benefits.
3. Ask for workers' compensation coverage details and liability certificates.
4. Get pay rate, markup, overtime billing and conversion fees on separate lines, by work site.
5. Check client and job seeker ratings on ClearlyRated's Seattle listings and call two references.

Selling to Seattle staffing agencies

Two markets sit side by side. The large temp branches, many in Pierce and south King County, buy timekeeping, payroll that handles several local minimums, screening, safety training and transport. The IT, engineering and search firms around Seattle and Bellevue buy candidate data, sourcing tools, applicant tracking and contractor management software. Washington's pay-range rule helps you prioritize: an agency's postings tell you what it pays and how fast it's hiring. Reading every posting by hand is the slow part; Bebop researches each account and writes a playbook with who to contact and the angle to open with. For the client side of the tech market, see tech companies in Seattle, and for method, how to build a prospect list.

Subject: Pay ranges on [agency]'s contract postings

Hi [first name],

I counted [number] open contract roles on [agency]'s job board this week, several without a benefits line.

Washington expects postings from employers with 15 or more staff, including those placed by a third party, to carry a wage scale and benefits summary, and a notice gives you 5 business days to fix one. We check every posting before it goes live and flag the gaps.

Would a free check of your current postings be useful?

[Your name]

Local sources

Next step: see the region's largest employers, the agencies' biggest clients, in largest employers in Seattle.