Three weeks ago, a mid-size Memphis security company lost eight guards in a single pay period. Not to a competitor. Not to retirement. To a FedEx warehouse off Airways Boulevard that was offering $17 an hour and a signing bonus.
The company’s owner, who asked not to be named, told me he’s been in this business for fourteen years and has never seen anything like what’s happening right now. “I’ve got contracts I can’t staff,” he said. “I’m turning down new business because I literally don’t have the bodies.”
He’s not alone. Across Memphis, security firms are scrambling to fill positions as the post-COVID economy reopens and pulls workers toward warehouses, distribution centers, and retail jobs that pay more and often require less. The math is simple and brutal: why stand a post for $11 an hour when Amazon will pay you $16 to sort packages?
The Numbers Tell the Story
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted roughly 1.1 million security guards employed across the United States at the start of 2021. That number has been shrinking since last summer, even as demand for security services keeps climbing. The national turnover rate for security guards already ran between 100% and 300% annually before the pandemic. In Memphis, local operators say it’s gotten worse.
Tennessee’s Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) has hundreds of licensed security companies in the state. A significant chunk of them operate in Shelby County. Every one of those companies is fishing from the same shrinking labor pool, and they’re losing that contest to employers who can offer more money with fewer requirements.
Here’s the core tension. A warehouse job at one of the Amazon distribution centers near Frayser doesn’t require a background check through IdentoGO, doesn’t require employer sponsorship from a licensed contract security company, and doesn’t require waiting three to six weeks for TDCI to process your registration. You fill out an application, pass a drug test, and start next Monday.
Security work, on the other hand, requires all of that. And the pay is worse.
Memphis: A Logistics Town First
You can’t understand the guard shortage in Memphis without understanding what Memphis actually is. This city moves more cargo by air than any other city in the Western Hemisphere. FedEx’s global superhub at the airport processes millions of packages every night. The company employs tens of thousands of people in the metro area, and right now, it needs more.
Drive down Airways Boulevard from the airport north toward Lamar, and you’ll pass distribution facility after distribution facility. FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, third-party logistics operations, all of them hiring. Head up to the Frayser area and Nike’s massive distribution center is running help-wanted ads on loop. Amazon has been expanding its Memphis-area footprint aggressively throughout 2020 and into this year.
These warehouses are offering $15 to $18 an hour for entry-level positions. Some include health insurance from day one. Some throw in tuition assistance. A few are dangling signing bonuses of $1,000 or more.
Now compare that to what a typical unarmed security guard makes in Memphis. The range, based on conversations with a dozen local operators and job postings I’ve pulled over the past month, sits between $10 and $13 an hour. Armed guards do better, sometimes hitting $15 or $16, but armed certification requires 48 hours of firearms training and additional background screening. That’s a real barrier for someone who just needs a paycheck this week.
The Unemployment Benefits Factor
There’s another force at work, and it’s one that security company owners bring up within the first two minutes of every conversation about staffing.
The federal government is still paying an extra $300 per week in supplemental unemployment benefits on top of whatever the state provides. Tennessee’s maximum weekly unemployment benefit is $275. Stack the federal supplement on top and someone collecting full benefits is getting $575 a week without working. That’s $14.37 an hour for a 40-hour week, except they’re working zero hours.
“I’m not blaming anyone for taking the money,” said one security operations manager based in East Memphis. “If the government is going to pay you more to stay home than I can pay you to work a night shift at a shopping center on Winchester, I get it. I’d probably make the same choice.”
The supplemental benefits are currently scheduled to run through September 2021. Several states have already announced plans to opt out early and end the federal supplement ahead of schedule. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee hasn’t made that call yet as of this writing, and security employers are watching closely.
What Companies Are Doing (and What Isn’t Working)
The obvious answer is “pay more.” Some companies have done exactly that. A few Memphis firms have bumped starting wages to $13 or $14 for unarmed guards, with armed positions starting at $17 or higher. The problem is that security contracts often have thin margins. When a property manager is paying a security company $20 an hour per guard, and the company is covering workers’ comp, insurance, uniforms, supervision, and admin costs on top of the guard’s wage, there’s not much room to offer $17 an hour without renegotiating the entire contract.
Some companies have tried non-wage incentives. Flexible scheduling. Referral bonuses. Gas cards. One firm I spoke with started paying weekly instead of biweekly after losing several guards who said they couldn’t wait two weeks for a check.
Others are getting creative with recruitment. Instead of competing head-to-head with FedEx for the same 22-year-old who just needs a job, some companies are targeting retirees, military veterans, and people looking for part-time work. A security post that pays $12 an hour might not attract someone supporting a family, but it might work for a retired Memphis PD officer looking for something to fill the hours.
That said, these are band-aids on a structural wound. The security industry’s labor model was built on the assumption that there would always be a deep pool of workers willing to accept low wages for relatively low-skill work. That assumption is being tested right now, and it’s failing.
The Licensing Bottleneck
Even when companies find willing applicants, the onboarding process creates its own delay. Tennessee requires all security guards to be registered through TDCI’s Private Protective Services division. The process involves fingerprinting (done through IdentoGO locations across the city), a criminal background check, and submission through the state’s CORE online system.
Under normal circumstances, this process takes a few weeks. Right now, local operators report wait times stretching to four, five, even six weeks between application and approval. One owner on Summer Avenue told me he had fifteen applicants in March. By the time their registrations cleared, nine of them had already taken other jobs.
For armed guard certification, the timeline gets longer. Applicants need 48 hours of firearms training from a TDCI-certified instructor, plus qualification on an approved silhouette target course with a minimum 70% accuracy score. Finding available training slots has become its own problem, with some certified instructors booked out weeks in advance.
The licensing pipeline was designed for a steady flow, not for an industry trying to rapidly rebuild its workforce after a pandemic. And nobody at TDCI seems to be in a rush to speed things up.
What This Means for Memphis Businesses
If you’re a property manager, business owner, or facility director who relies on contract security, the hiring crisis is probably already affecting you. Maybe your provider has been slower to fill open shifts. Maybe you’ve noticed more unfamiliar faces rotating through your property. Maybe response times have slipped.
The hard truth is that this problem isn’t going away soon. Even if the federal unemployment supplement expires in September as scheduled, the structural wage gap between security work and warehouse work will still exist. FedEx isn’t going to stop hiring. Amazon isn’t going to close its Memphis-area facilities. The competition for low-wage labor in this city is only going to intensify as the economy continues to reopen.
Some security operators are already starting those difficult conversations with clients about rate increases. If your provider hasn’t brought it up yet, they probably will before summer.
The companies that survive this crunch will be the ones that figure out how to attract and retain guards in a market where the warehouse down the road is always hiring. Right now, most of them are still trying to figure out how.