One platform, one exit for everyone

A mismatch, not a shortage. There are 95 vacancies per 100 unemployed people (CBS, Q2 2026). Demand sits in sectors for which supply has not been trained, people have been trained for one profession rather than to keep learning, and traditional staffing sees a CV, not an Adaptive Professional.

Capacity is cyclical, capability is structural. Temporary staffing hours fell three years in a row: 2023 –14%, 2024 –8%, 2025 –5% (ABU). Demand for people who can keep learning and switch professions is not falling with them.

Legislation is driving consolidation.

• Equal pay: agency and seconded workers receive the hirer's package of employment terms, via collective labour agreement from 1 January 2026 and by law no later than 31 December 2026.
• Wtta: labour providers need admission. Registration with the NAU is open from 1 November to 31 December 2026, the act takes effect on 1 January 2027 and the Netherlands Labour Authority enforces from 1 January 2028. From 2028, hiring from parties without admission is prohibited.

For a small agency, compliance is a hurdle it can hardly carry alone. Under one engine room it becomes feasible: one admission, one certification, one compliance organisation for all brands.

Sources: CBS, ABU, Dutch government, Netherlands Labour Authority. As of September 2026.

Each brand keeps its own name, its own clients and its own entrepreneur. What is shared is agreed up front in three categories, so that not every synergy discussion ends in centralisation.

• Mandatory: compliance and certification, reporting and measurement, the methodology for adaptability.
• Shared: recruitment marketing and employer brand, cross-selling with client protection, one yardstick for social revenue.
• Free: client relationship, price and proposition, day-to-day operations, culture and way of working.

EAPEX runs the engine room, but does not run day-to-day operations and does not take over roles in the brands.

One shared base delivers three advantages a stand-alone brand cannot organise:

• Compliance and subsidies: equal pay, Wtta and certification sorted once properly instead of ten times by halves, plus the subsidies and wage-cost benefits the talent pools bring with them.
• Commercial clout: integrated solutions instead of a single CV. Delivering capability across brands, taking on bigger clients, negotiating harder. And one face to the market: at the table with major clients, with a voice towards government.
• Tech and AI: one orchestration layer, one data flow, one investment in AI that no brand could ever recoup on its own.

Everything from one principle: maximising value creation for all five at once — professional, entrepreneur, client, investor and society.

The PE roll-up in staffing buys capacity and stacks volume; the entrepreneur sells and leaves. EAPEX starts with entrepreneurs who stay and buys capability, not headcount. Private equity or a strategic buyer only comes into the picture at exit.

The evergreen fund has no exit horizon and holds stakes in separate, unconnected businesses. EAPEX is one platform around one theme, with a set term and one exit for everyone.

The single-vertical player focuses on one target group or sector and grows to the ceiling of that niche. EAPEX has broad inflow, from vocational to university level, across several sectors, with one engine room underneath.

Growing independently often hits the glass ceiling: you have to carry compliance and tech alone. Together you do it in good company: a shared engine room, more clout, your own brand.

It starts with the entrepreneurs. The capital follows the plan, not the other way round.

Entrepreneurs who have rolled over and investors sell at the same moment, as one platform. No one exits early on their own, and the buyer acquires a whole: a capability platform, not a capacity agency.

What it looks like when it works. Not a forecast, but a picture of two to three years from now.

• For the market: clients no longer buy hours, but capability. The talent pools have become a source rather than a policy goal.
• For the entrepreneurs: a family of brands on one base that carries compliance, tech and subsidies, through the ceiling without losing the business.
• For the Netherlands, and beyond: a proven model for a labour market that steers on adaptability rather than on shortages. Started in the Netherlands, ready to live up to the E in EAPEX.