For staffing and recruiting firms
Automate everything except the selection
The Federal Employment Agency counted 669,000 temp workers in June 2025, the lowest since 2010, while the industry's intake pipeline still runs 789,000 new contracts a year. Speed is the product in this market, and of all industries this is the one where the EU declared the core of the business, evaluating candidates, a high-risk AI application. The gains sit everywhere else.
30 minutes, no obligation. German or English.
669,000
temp workers in June 2025, the lowest level since 2010
Federal Employment Agency, January 2026
789,000
new employment contracts in twelve months, against a stock of roughly 660,000
Federal Employment Agency
43.2%
of applicants write their cover letters with AI, three times the 2023 share
softgarden, June 2026
The gap
The EU regulates the selection. The daily grind around it is yours to automate.
One hire takes on average 70 days, 19 applications and 4 interviews, and three quarters of applicants expect an invitation within two weeks (onlyfy application report). A staffing firm runs the full intake pipeline more than once per worker per year. Exactly these pipelines are what the AI Act does not regulate, and exactly there we build.
Intake and qualification without selection
Applications and client orders captured in structure, documents completed, follow-up questions asked automatically, in the firm's tone and with sign-off. That is data collection, not selection, and it sits outside the high-risk category.
Reactivating your own pool
A churn of 789,000 contracts a year means every agency sits on a treasure of already-vetted, known workers. Systematic, occasion-based re-engagement is the cheapest placement in the market and entirely unregulated.
Scheduling against the two-week clock
Interview scheduling against the applicants' expectation, status messages against ghosting in both directions. Per KOFA, 14.7 percent of companies have seen signed contracts simply not honored on day one; whoever communicates faster loses fewer.
The paperwork that decides your license
The staffing permit, maximum assignment duration, equal pay after nine months, sector surcharges, in Austria the reference surcharge and the training-fund levy. Drafting these documents and monitoring their deadlines is the safest and most valuable AI deployment in the entire industry.
The AI Act first
Built on the safe side of Annex III
Recruiting is the one SME industry where the EU named the core process high-risk. Our line is simple: machines prepare, humans select, and the paperwork proves it.
No high-risk shortcuts
Annex III of the AI Act declares high-risk those systems intended to analyse and filter job applications and to evaluate candidates. We do not build or white-label matching models; whoever does risks full provider status including conformity assessment.
§ 22 AGG and the burden of proof
A rejected candidate needs only indications, and then the agency must prove its model did not discriminate. Opaque scoring is a liability; where AI touches selection at all, it runs as documented decision support with a named human per shortlist.
Art. 26 deployer duties, built in early
From 2 December 2027, deployers of high-risk systems owe named, competent human oversight, logging and information of affected people. Deferred, not diluted; we build the logs and the sign-off trail now, so the deadline is a date, not a project.
The staffing-law paperwork, drafted and deadline-watched
The AÜG license, maximum assignment duration, equal-pay milestones and surcharges decide the firm's existence. Our systems draft the documents and watch the deadlines; a human signs.
How it starts
Same engagement, firm-specific scope
Intro call
Free
30 minutes on your firm's bottlenecks. About a third of these calls end with the advice that AI is not the right tool yet.
Process audit
from €2,500 · credited to the implementation
We map where the hours actually go, from intake to deadline board, and rank the use cases by payback. You get a shortlist with expected effort, not a slide deck.
Implementation
Fixed fee, named in your proposal
One process at a time, live in your daily business in 2 to 4 weeks, with your team trained and a sign-off step wherever client data leaves a draft.
Fair questions
What staffing firms ask us first
Does this replace recruiters?
No. In a shrinking market, the agencies that remain are those whose recruiters spend their hours on the two things machines may not legally own here: the matching judgment and the client relationship. Automation clears the pipeline work in front of those hours.
Can AI take over our CV screening?
The honest answer: that is exactly what Annex III of the AI Act names as high-risk, and § 22 AGG turns the burden of proof against you. If at all, then under four rules: bought rather than built, documented decision support rather than decider, a named human per shortlist, logged and disclosed. We set that up; we will not sell you a ranking machine.
The high-risk duties only apply from December 2027. Why care now?
Because they were deferred, not diluted, and because § 22 AGG applies today. Systems built now with logging and a sign-off trail cost nothing extra later; systems built without will have to be rebuilt in 2027.
Are the vendor numbers true, 6 seconds per CV and 75 percent dying in the ATS?
No. The 6 seconds come from a 2012 eye-tracking study with 30 participants, and the 75 percent is a misreading of a Harvard study that never measured any such thing. What is solid is the churn of your own intake pipeline, and that is business case enough.
What does it cost?
The audit starts at €2,500 and is credited in full against the implementation. Implementations are fixed-fee. For market context, we published what AI automation actually costs, with sources, on our blog. Read the article with all market prices.
Talk to us before the next placement goes to a faster agency
A 30-minute call is enough to tell whether your firm has an automation case. If it does not, we say so.