Recruitment marketing agency for staffing firms in Illinois

What does the Day and Temporary Labor Services Act require?

The Act sets duties for day and temporary labor service agencies operating in Illinois and, in the amended version, for the third-party clients that use them. Agencies register with the Illinois Department of Labor and provide laborers with a written notice of the assignment covering the nature of the work, pay rate, worksite and schedule. There are requirements around safety training before an assignment starts, around transportation and equipment charges, and around disclosing to a laborer when they are being sent into a workplace with an ongoing strike, lockout or other labor dispute.

The provision with the biggest commercial impact is equal pay for equal work. Once a day or temporary laborer has been assigned to the same client for more than 90 calendar days, they must be paid at least the rate of pay and receive equivalent benefits as the lowest-paid directly hired employee of the client performing substantially similar work with substantially similar skill, effort and responsibility. Benefits may be satisfied by paying the hourly cash equivalent. That means the client has to hand over comparator data, and it means bill rates need a step change built in before day 91.

• Registration with the Illinois Department of Labor, and a prohibition on clients using unregistered agencies.
• Written assignment notices, safety training and labor dispute disclosure.
• Equal pay and equivalent benefits after more than 90 calendar days with the same client.
• Penalties and a private right of action, including for interested-party complaints.

How does that change job advertising and candidate messaging?

Two things. First, accuracy in the ad matters more than usual, because the assignment notice a laborer receives has to match what they were told, and a mismatch between a paid ad promising one rate and an assignment notice showing another is an avoidable dispute. Second, the 90-day step is a recruiting message, not just a compliance line. A campaign that says what the pay is now and what happens at day 91 converts better with experienced light industrial workers than a generic 'competitive pay' ad, and it screens out people who would drop out when they learn the terms.

Operationally, plan bill rates and client conversations before the campaign goes live. It is a poor look to fill a 200-worker light industrial order and then reopen pricing at week 13.

• Put a real pay rate in the ad and keep it consistent with the assignment notice.
• Say plainly whether the role is day labor, temp, temp-to-hire or direct hire.
• Prepare clients for the day-91 economics before you scale a campaign, not after.

What does Leadstars actually run for a staffing firm?

Two systems, side by side. The Job Acquisition Machine covers candidate demand: paid social campaigns on Meta and TikTok, AI sourcing, and multi-channel job distribution to 15+ job boards, all pointed at a landing page and an application flow built for the role rather than at a generic careers page. The Client Acquisition System covers the sales side: ICP outreach and B2B advertising aimed at companies that are demonstrably hiring, so your recruiters get meetings with hiring managers instead of cold lists.

We commit to lead and applicant volume, not to hires. Fill rate, time to fill and margin depend on your recruiters, your bill rate and your client's interview process, and we do not claim credit for them. What we guarantee is the agreed lead volume, with the first leads arriving within 7 days of launch.

• Cost per applicant reported per campaign, per market and per role type.
• Creative built for the audience: light industrial and hourly roles are advertised very differently from professional direct hire searches.
• Applications delivered into your ATS, or into a simple pipeline if your ATS integration is not ready.
• Client-side outreach that names the account, the role and the reason for the outreach, rather than generic prospecting.

A note on legal accuracy

Leadstars is a marketing agency, not a law firm. Nothing here is legal advice, the rules change, and how a statute applies depends on your entity, your worker classification and your client contracts. Have counsel review your ad templates and your assignment paperwork before you rely on any of it.

Sources

• 820 ILCS 175 - Day and Temporary Labor Services Act
• Illinois Department of Labor - Day and Temporary Labor Services Act