The Bureau of Labor Statistics released May’s Consumer Price Index numbers last week. Inflation hit 8.6% year-over-year, the highest figure since December 1981. Gas prices are above $4.50 a gallon in most of Memphis. Grocery costs are up double digits. And for security companies trying to hire guards in this city, the math has never been worse.
Here’s the core problem. An unarmed security guard in Tennessee earns somewhere between $14 and $16 an hour, according to BLS occupational data and Indeed salary listings for the Memphis metro area. Armed guards do slightly better, landing in the $16 to $18 range. Glassdoor puts the median total pay for a Memphis security guard at around $34,800 per year.
Now compare that to what else is hiring. Amazon’s distribution centers in Memphis and Olive Branch are posting starting wages of $15 to $18 an hour, with sign-on bonuses that sometimes reach $3,000. FedEx, which operates its global superhub at Memphis International Airport, starts package handlers at $15.50 and has been advertising tuition reimbursement on top of that. Walmart distribution centers are offering $17 to $20 for warehouse roles with benefits kicking in immediately.
These aren’t hypothetical competitors. They’re drawing from the exact same labor pool. A 25-year-old with a clean background and a driver’s license, the same profile that security companies recruit, can walk into a FedEx facility on Democrat Road and start making more money next week, with health insurance and a 401(k). Why would that person choose to stand in a parking lot for $14.50 an hour with no benefits?
The Numbers Behind the Crisis
Tennessee’s Department of Commerce and Insurance, which regulates the private security industry through its Private Protective Services division, processes roughly 4,200 guard registration applications each year. That sounds like a decent pipeline until you factor in turnover.
The security industry’s turnover problem is legendary. National estimates from the American Society for Industrial Security and various industry surveys have placed annual turnover rates between 100% and 300%, depending on market segment and region. A company with 50 guards might need to hire 75 to 100 people per year just to maintain that headcount.
Memphis sits in the ugly middle of this equation. The city’s cost of living is lower than coastal markets, which helps with retention somewhat. Yet Memphis also has an unusually competitive low-wage labor market because of the logistics industry. FedEx alone employs over 30,000 people in the Memphis area. Amazon has expanded aggressively. Nike’s distribution center in Frayser, the Cummins facility in Olive Branch, the growing cluster of e-commerce warehouses along Getwell Road south of the airport — they all need bodies, and they all pay at or above what security companies can offer.
I spoke with managers at three Memphis-area security companies over the past two weeks (all asked to remain anonymous because they didn’t want clients seeing how thin their bench is). The picture they painted was consistent.
One operations manager told me his company posted 15 open guard positions in March. By mid-May, they’d filled seven. Of those seven, two quit within three weeks. “We’re competing with Amazon and they’ve got a marketing budget bigger than my entire payroll,” he said.
Another owner, who runs a small firm with about 30 guards covering commercial properties in East Memphis and Germantown, said he’s raised starting pay twice since January. He’s now at $15.50 for unarmed and $18 for armed, up from $13 and $16 respectively in late 2021. “I’m eating the margin on three contracts because the clients won’t accept a rate increase, and I can’t fill the post at the old wage,” he told me.
Where the Workers Went
The pandemic reshuffled Memphis’s labor market in ways that haven’t fully corrected. In 2020, when shutdowns hit, security was considered essential work. Guards kept showing up at hospitals, distribution centers, and government buildings. They were also exposed to COVID risk, often without adequate PPE in the early months.
When expanded unemployment benefits and stimulus payments arrived, some guards left the industry and didn’t come back. When the warehouse sector boomed through 2021, it absorbed much of the available labor at higher wage points. The people who remained in security often had specific reasons: they wanted the flexibility of irregular shifts, they were pursuing law enforcement careers and needed experience, or they preferred a job that wasn’t physically demanding in the way warehouse work can be.
That last point matters more than people realize. Security work attracts a particular demographic. Many guards are older workers, military veterans, retired law enforcement, or people with physical limitations that rule out 10-hour shifts loading trucks. When you narrow the pool to people who want security work specifically, you’re working with a smaller subset than the headline unemployment rate suggests.
Armed Guards: A Separate Market
There’s a meaningful wage gap between unarmed and armed security in Memphis, and that gap is one of the few retention tools companies have.
An armed guard in Tennessee needs additional training and certification through TDCI. The process involves firearms qualification, additional background checks, and ongoing training requirements. Companies that invest in getting a guard through armed certification tend to retain them longer because the credential has value.
Armed guards in Memphis are earning $17 to $19 an hour in mid-2022, with some specialized posts (bank branches, high-value cargo, executive protection) paying $20 or more. That starts to compete with warehouse work, especially when you factor in that armed security shifts often involve less physical labor.
Several Memphis companies have started using armed certification as a recruitment tool. The pitch goes something like: “Start at $15 unarmed, and we’ll put you through armed training within 90 days. Once you’re certified, you move to $18 and get priority on the better posts.” It’s a career ladder, even if it’s a short one.
The problem is capacity. TDCI’s firearms training requirements take time and money. A company that certifies 10 new armed guards per quarter is doing well. If they’re losing 15 guards per quarter to attrition, the math still doesn’t work.
How Companies Are Adapting
The smart operators in Memphis are trying everything. Here’s what I’m seeing in the market.
Signing bonuses. Several firms are offering $500 to $1,000 signing bonuses, paid out after 90 days. This mirrors what the warehouse sector started doing in 2021. It helps get people in the door. Whether it keeps them past the payout date is another question.
Flexible scheduling. One company told me they’ve started letting guards pick their own shifts through an app, similar to how gig economy platforms work. Guards bid on available posts rather than getting assigned a fixed schedule. This appeals to workers who want control over their hours, and it fills gaps without forcing overtime.
Part-time positions. Rather than trying to fill full-time posts that nobody wants, some companies are breaking shifts into four and six-hour blocks and marketing them to college students, retirees, and people with second jobs. Shelby County has three community college campuses and multiple universities. That’s a potential labor pool if you’re willing to work around class schedules.
Better post assignments. Guards talk. They know which posts are miserable and which ones are tolerable. Companies that rotate people through desirable assignments — an air-conditioned lobby desk, a daytime corporate campus, a low-traffic government building — retain better than companies that stick new hires on overnight parking lot duty in Whitehaven.
Wage transparency. This is a newer development. A few companies have started publishing their pay scales on job listings instead of the old “DOE” (depends on experience) dodge. In a market where every applicant is comparing options on Indeed and ZipRecruiter, hiding the number just means they click away to the next listing.
What This Means for Clients
If you’re a business or property manager who contracts with a security provider in Memphis, you need to have realistic expectations this summer.
Your provider is probably short-staffed. They may not tell you that directly, yet the signs are there: posts going unfilled on short notice, seeing unfamiliar faces more often than usual, hearing about turnover you weren’t informed of. Ask pointed questions. How many guards did they lose last month? What’s their current fill rate on your contract? Do they have a bench deep enough to cover if two people quit next week?
Expect rate increases. If your security vendor hasn’t raised prices yet, they will. The ones who haven’t are either losing money on your contract or cutting corners on guard quality to preserve margin. Neither outcome is good for you.
Consider what you’re actually paying for. A $14-an-hour guard who’s disengaged, undertrained, and job-hunting on their phone isn’t providing much value at any price. A $17-an-hour guard who’s invested in the post, knows the property, and plans to stay for a year is worth the premium. Push your provider to pay better and charge you accordingly. It’s cheaper than dealing with the aftermath of a security failure.
The Memphis security staffing crisis isn’t going to resolve itself by fall. Inflation would need to drop, warehouse competition would need to ease, and the security industry would need to fundamentally rethink its compensation model. None of those things are happening quickly. Companies that adapt will survive. Companies that keep posting $13-an-hour jobs on Craigslist and wondering why nobody applies are going to lose contracts they can’t staff.
The guard industry has always been a low-margin, high-turnover business. In Memphis in the summer of 2022, those structural weaknesses are fully exposed. And there’s no quick fix coming.