There’s a whiteboard in the office of a Memphis security company I visited last week. It tracks open guard positions by client site. When I walked in, the board listed 47 unfilled shifts across 19 accounts. The operations manager, a guy who’s been in this business for 15 years, pointed at it and laughed. Not a happy laugh.
“That board used to stress me out,” he said. “Now I just accept it. We can’t fill those shifts. We’ve been trying for months.”
He’s not alone. Across Tennessee, from Memphis to Nashville to Knoxville to Chattanooga, security companies are facing a workforce crisis that’s unlike anything the industry has experienced. The shortage isn’t new; the industry has struggled with recruiting and retention for years. What’s new in spring 2021 is the severity. Companies aren’t just short a few guards here and there. They’re turning down contracts because they physically don’t have the people to staff them.
I spent three weeks reporting on this story, talking to company owners, operations managers, HR professionals, guards themselves, and workforce development specialists across the state. Every conversation confirmed the same reality: the security guard pipeline in Tennessee is broken, and nobody has a quick fix.
The Wage Problem
Let’s start with the obvious. Security guards in Tennessee earn, on average, between $10 and $13 an hour for unarmed positions. Armed guards make more, typically $13 to $17, depending on the market and the client. These aren’t great wages by any standard, and in the current labor market, they’re actively uncompetitive.
Amazon’s Memphis-area fulfillment centers start workers at $15 an hour or higher. FedEx, the city’s largest employer, offers competitive wages with a benefits package. Dollar General’s distribution center in Olive Branch, just across the Mississippi state line, pays $14 to start. Walmart distribution pays similarly.
A prospective security guard in Memphis can walk into an Amazon warehouse, get hired on the spot, and start earning $15 an hour by the end of the week. Or they can apply for a guard position, complete a background check, wait for TDCI registration, finish required training hours, and eventually start earning $11 an hour standing in a parking lot at 2 AM.
The math doesn’t require a calculator.
In Nashville, the wage gap is equally stark. The city’s construction boom has created thousands of jobs paying $16 to $20 an hour for laborers with no experience. Hospitality is rebounding and restaurants along Broadway are hiring servers who can earn more in tips on a Friday night than a guard makes in a full week. Even retail positions at places like Costco and Target pay $15 or more.
One Nashville security company owner described his recruiting challenge with a metaphor I won’t forget: “I’m trying to sell a used Honda in a market full of brand-new Toyotas at the same price. Nobody’s buying.”
Federal Unemployment Supplements: The Accelerant
Tennessee’s $300 weekly federal unemployment supplement, added to state benefits, has created a situation where some potential workers earn more by not working than they would as security guards.
This is a politically charged topic, and I’m going to try to stay on the factual side of it. A single adult in Tennessee receiving maximum state unemployment ($275/week) plus the federal supplement ($300/week) takes home $575 per week, or roughly $14.38 an hour for a 40-hour equivalent. An unarmed guard earning $11 an hour grosses $440 per week before taxes.
The incentive structure is obvious. For a person weighing whether to sit at home and collect $575 or work nights and weekends for $440, the choice isn’t difficult. And I want to be clear: I don’t blame the workers making that choice. They’re acting rationally in response to the economic incentives in front of them. The problem is systemic, not personal.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has signaled that the state may opt out of the federal unemployment supplement, which would remove this particular disincentive. Several other states are moving in that direction. If Tennessee follows, it could loosen the labor market somewhat for security companies. When, and whether, that happens remains unclear.
Turnover: The Numbers Are Brutal
Recruiting is only half the problem. Retention is the other half, and it might be the worse half.
Annual turnover rates at Tennessee security companies range from 100% at the better-run firms to over 200% at the worst. Those numbers aren’t misprints. A company with 200% turnover has to hire two people for every position, every year, just to maintain its current headcount.
The causes of turnover are the same ones the industry has been discussing for a decade: low pay, irregular schedules, limited benefits, physically demanding or boring work, and minimal career advancement opportunities. Guards who perform well get poached by competitors offering an extra dollar an hour. Guards who don’t perform well get terminated. Either way, the position opens up again.
“I hired 120 people last year,” the HR director at a Knoxville security firm told me. “I ended the year with a net increase of eight guards. Eight. Do you know how much it costs to recruit, background check, train, and uniform 120 people to net eight?”
She calculated the cost at roughly $1,800 per hire when you include advertising, background checks, uniforms, training time, and administrative overhead. Multiply that by 120, and you get $216,000 spent on recruiting to add eight guards. That’s money the company can’t spend on raising wages, investing in technology, or improving working conditions.
TDCI Requirements: Necessary, Challenging
Tennessee’s Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) regulates the private security industry in the state. Guards must register, complete required training, and pass background checks. Armed guards face additional requirements including firearms qualification.
These regulations exist for good reasons. They protect the public, establish minimum competency standards, and provide accountability. Nobody in the industry I spoke with argued that TDCI requirements should be eliminated. What several people told me is that the requirements add friction at the worst possible time.
The registration process takes time. Background checks, even routine ones, can take days or weeks. Training hours have to be completed and documented. For a company that needs to fill a guard post next Monday, the timeline from “application received” to “guard deployed at site” can stretch to three or four weeks.
“I lost a candidate last month because the background check took 12 days,” a Memphis company owner said. “By day eight, he’d already accepted a job at a warehouse. I don’t blame TDCI for doing thorough background checks. I just wish it was faster.”
Some companies have tried to reduce this friction by pre-screening candidates, maintaining pools of registered-and-ready guards, and offering to pay for training upfront. These approaches help at the margins, though they don’t solve the fundamental problem of too few applicants.
Companies Turning Down Business
Here’s the most remarkable thing about the current shortage: security companies in Tennessee are turning away revenue.
Every company owner I interviewed reported declining at least one contract in the first quarter of 2021 because they couldn’t staff it. Some reported declining several. This is a business where profit margins are thin and growth has traditionally been a primary goal. Turning down contracts goes against every instinct in the industry.
“A property management company called me in February wanting 24/7 coverage at three apartment complexes in South Memphis,” one owner told me. “That’s a $30,000-a-month contract. I had to say no. I didn’t have 12 guards to put on those sites, and I wasn’t going to promise something I couldn’t deliver.”
Another firm, based in Nashville, described a similar situation with a corporate campus that wanted to increase its guard presence from two posts to five. “We couldn’t find three additional guards in two months of recruiting. The client went with a national company that probably had the same staffing problems, just a bigger bench to pull from.”
The irony is cruel. Demand for security services in Tennessee has never been higher. Memphis is on pace for a record number of homicides. Nashville is rebuilding its entertainment district and adding commercial properties. Knoxville is growing. Chattanooga’s manufacturing sector is expanding. Every trend points toward more security spending. The industry just can’t capture it.
What Companies Are Doing About It
Not everyone is sitting around complaining. Several Tennessee firms are trying creative approaches to the shortage, with mixed results.
Raising wages. Some companies have increased starting pay by $1 to $3 per hour and passed the costs to clients. A few Nashville firms now start unarmed guards at $13 to $14 an hour, closer to competitive with warehouse work. The wage increases help with recruiting, though they squeeze margins further.
Reducing barriers. A couple of firms told me they’ve lowered their internal hiring standards (separate from TDCI requirements) to accept candidates they might have screened out in previous years. Minor criminal histories, spotty work records, and less-than-stellar references are getting second looks. This is a risky strategy. Lower hiring standards can lead to higher incident rates, liability exposure, and client dissatisfaction.
Veteran recruitment. Companies with connections to military transition programs are having some success recruiting veterans. Shield of Steel, a veteran-owned statewide firm based in Memphis, has leaned on military networks to source candidates, and their veteran pipeline gives them a modest advantage in a market where every warm body counts. That said, even they’re feeling the squeeze. Being veteran-owned with military contacts helps with recruiting quality, though it doesn’t solve the raw volume problem when the entire labor market is tight. No single firm, regardless of its niche advantages, is immune to a shortage this deep.
Workforce partnerships. A few companies have partnered with Tennessee’s workforce development programs, including American Job Centers, to reach job seekers who might not consider security work on their own. These partnerships generate leads, though conversion rates are low. Many job seekers who come through workforce programs are looking for higher-paying positions in manufacturing or logistics.
Technology substitution. Where clients are willing, some firms are replacing guard posts with camera systems, remote monitoring, and access control technology. A camera can’t detain a trespasser, and it can’t provide the visible deterrent that a uniformed guard offers. For certain applications, like overnight coverage of vacant properties or monitoring of interior hallways, technology is a viable alternative that doesn’t require a warm body.
The Math Has to Change
Underneath all the specific challenges, the guard shortage in Tennessee comes down to a math problem. The security industry needs to pay more than $10 to $12 an hour to attract and retain workers in a labor market where $15 is the new floor. Paying more means charging clients more. Charging clients more means some clients will reduce their security footprint or switch to technology-only solutions.
The industry is going to look different on the other side of this. Guard wages in Tennessee will be higher in 2022 than they were in 2020. That’s not a prediction; it’s an inevitability. Companies that don’t raise wages will simply not have guards. The companies that survive and grow will be the ones that figure out how to deliver security services at higher labor costs without pricing themselves out of the market.
Some of that will come from technology. Remote monitoring centers that allow one operator to watch 20 camera feeds can reduce the number of physical guard posts a property needs. Access control systems that automate entry and exit tracking reduce the need for lobby guards. Analytics software that detects anomalies in camera footage can alert a roving patrol to respond only when something is actually happening, rather than staffing a post where nothing happens 98% of the time.
Some of it will come from operational efficiency. Better scheduling software. More consistent training programs that reduce early turnover. Career pathways that give guards a reason to stay in the industry rather than treating the job as a temporary stop.
And some of it, frankly, will come from clients accepting that security is going to cost more. The days of $10-an-hour guards providing reliable coverage at commercial properties are ending. They may already be over.
No Quick Fix
I wish I could end this piece with a solution. I can’t. The guard shortage in Tennessee is a structural problem created by decades of wage stagnation, a pandemic that reshaped the labor market, government policies that reduced the incentive to work low-wage jobs, and competition from industries that can simply pay more.
The shortage will ease eventually. Federal unemployment supplements will expire. Wage adjustments will make security work more competitive. The labor market will rebalance. None of that is happening tomorrow, or next month, or probably even this year.
In the meantime, Tennessee’s security companies are doing what they’ve always done. They’re grinding. They’re recruiting. They’re calling applicants back for the third time. They’re asking guards to pick up extra shifts. They’re hoping that the next resume that comes in is someone who will actually show up for the interview.
That whiteboard in the Memphis office isn’t getting any emptier. The operations manager told me he checks it every morning, hoping to see fewer open shifts. “One of these days,” he said. “One of these days.”