A security company owner in Memphis recently ran the numbers on his guard workforce from the past 12 months. He started 2023 with 85 active guards. Over the course of the year, he hired 114 new guards. He ended the year with 78. Do the math and you get a turnover rate of roughly 134%.
He’s not an outlier. That number is normal in this industry, especially in Memphis. Nationally, security guard turnover runs between 100% and 200% depending on the market, the company, and how honestly you count. In Memphis, the rate sits at the higher end of that range because the city’s logistics economy offers entry-level workers something most security companies can’t match: higher starting pay with better benefits.
Summer makes everything worse. Demand for guards peaks. The labor pool shrinks. And the companies that can’t fill their posts start losing contracts to the ones that can.
The FedEx Problem
You can’t understand Memphis’s security staffing crisis without understanding FedEx.
The FedEx World Hub at Memphis International Airport is the largest cargo sorting facility on the planet. It employs thousands of workers in package handling, sorting, and logistics roles. Those positions start at $17 to $19 per hour, with health insurance, retirement benefits, and tuition reimbursement kicking in after a relatively short waiting period.
Around the hub, FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight operations add thousands more jobs across the metro area. Amazon has expanded its Memphis-area warehouse footprint as well, with fulfillment centers in Olive Branch (just across the Mississippi state line) and in the Frayser area offering similar starting wages.
Now consider what a Memphis security company offers an entry-level unarmed guard. Starting wages range from $13 to $16 per hour. Benefits, if they exist at all, often require a 90-day waiting period and come with higher employee contributions. The work involves standing at a post for 8 to 12 hours, often overnight or on weekends, sometimes in parking lots during Memphis’s brutal summer heat.
The comparison isn’t subtle. A warehouse worker at FedEx starts at $17 an hour, works indoors in climate control, gets benefits from day one at some positions, and has a clear path to higher-paying roles within the company. An unarmed security guard starts at $14, stands outside in 95-degree heat, works alone on a property where something bad might happen, and has limited advancement options unless they pursue armed certification.
When those are the two job postings sitting next to each other on Indeed, the choice isn’t hard for most applicants.
Armed Guards: Better Pay, Same Problems
Armed security guards earn more. Starting wages for armed positions in Memphis run $18 to $24 per hour, depending on the contract and the client. Some high-security contracts at financial institutions, government facilities, and healthcare campuses pay even higher.
The armed premium helps with retention. Guards who invest the time and money to get armed certification through TDCI tend to stay in the industry longer because they’ve committed to the career path and the pay differential makes the work more sustainable. Turnover among armed guards runs lower than among unarmed guards, typically in the 60% to 80% range rather than the triple-digit rates on the unarmed side.
The problem with armed guards isn’t turnover. It’s supply. The armed registration process requires additional training, firearms qualification, and a longer TDCI processing timeline that currently stretches to eight weeks or more. A company that loses three armed guards in June can’t replace them until August at the earliest. During those weeks, existing armed guards work overtime, service quality on the understaffed posts degrades, and the client starts wondering whether they picked the right vendor.
Why Summer Is the Worst
Three seasonal factors collide between June and September to create the staffing crunch.
First, demand peaks. Property managers increase security coverage for the summer months because property crime rises with the temperature. Event venues book more weekend events requiring security staffing. Construction sites that are idle during colder months hit full activity in summer and need site security.
Second, competition for workers intensifies. FedEx and Amazon hire seasonal workers for their summer shipping volume. Other industries from landscaping to food service ramp up seasonal hiring. The same pool of available hourly workers who might consider a security guard position has more options in June than in January.
Third, existing guards burn out. Working a midnight shift in a parking lot when the temperature hasn’t dropped below 85 degrees at 2 a.m. takes a physical toll. Guards who made it through the winter and spring start quitting in June and July when the heat becomes genuinely unbearable. Companies that don’t provide basics like covered posts, cooling fans, or regular relief rotations see higher summer attrition.
The Wage War
Memphis security companies have started raising wages. They don’t have much choice.
Starting rates for unarmed guards in the metro area have climbed from the $11 to $13 range that was common three years ago to $13 to $16 today. Some companies are offering sign-on bonuses of $200 to $500 for new hires who complete their first 90 days. A few are experimenting with referral bonuses, paying existing guards $150 to $300 for each new hire they bring in who sticks past the probationary period.
These wage increases get passed to clients, and the reaction is mixed. Some property managers accept the higher rates because they understand the labor market. Others push back, questioning why their security bill jumped 15% in a year. The companies caught in the middle of that tension (wanting to pay enough to attract workers, needing to keep billing rates competitive enough to retain clients) are the ones feeling the staffing shortage most acutely.
The armed guard market is tighter still. Companies competing for armed personnel have pushed starting wages above $20 per hour in many cases, with some government and critical infrastructure contracts paying $25 to $28. At those rates, armed security becomes a genuinely middle-class job in Memphis’s cost of living, which helps explain why armed guard retention is significantly better.
Service Quality Takes the Hit
Here’s what the staffing shortage means for the businesses paying for security: worse service.
When a company can’t fill a post, it has three options. Send a different guard who doesn’t know the property. Cover the shift with overtime using an exhausted guard who’s already worked 50 hours that week. Or leave the post empty and hope nothing happens.
All three outcomes degrade the client’s experience. An unfamiliar guard doesn’t know the property’s access points, doesn’t recognize the regular tenants, and spends the first few shifts figuring out where things are rather than providing effective security. An overtired guard on hour 14 of their day isn’t alert. An empty post is obviously the worst outcome, and companies that leave posts unfilled without notifying the client risk losing the contract and their reputation.
Property managers who’ve been through a few staffing-shortage summers know to ask specific questions during the vendor selection process. How deep is your available guard roster? What’s your average tenure for guards on similar contracts? What happens when a guard calls in sick on a Friday night? The answers to those questions tell you more about a company’s ability to deliver consistent service than anything in their sales brochure.
Nobody’s Talking About This
One angle that rarely comes up in staffing discussions: the impact on training quality. Tennessee requires 48 hours of training for guard registration. When companies are desperate to fill posts, the temptation is to rush through training rather than treat it as genuine preparation.
A 48-hour training program done properly covers Tennessee law regarding use of force and citizen’s arrest authority, report writing, conflict de-escalation, emergency response procedures, post orders for specific assignments, and basic first aid. Done well, it produces a guard who can handle situations professionally and protect the company from liability.
Done poorly, in a compressed weekend format where the instructor rushes through slides and nobody asks questions, it produces a guard who has a certificate and not much else. That guard is more likely to mishandle a confrontation, write a useless incident report, or freeze during an emergency.
TDCI audits training records. Companies that can’t produce documentation showing their 48 hours of training covered the required topics face enforcement action. More importantly, companies that shortchange training produce guards who make mistakes that cost clients money and confidence.
Where This Heads
The Memphis security staffing shortage isn’t a 2024 problem that will resolve itself by 2025. It’s a structural condition created by the city’s logistics-driven economy, the gap between security wages and warehouse wages, and the industry’s historical reluctance to invest in its workforce the way other industries invest in theirs.
Companies that figure out how to pay competitive wages while maintaining margins will survive and grow. Companies that try to hold the line on $13-an-hour starting pay while FedEx posts $18-an-hour jobs on every billboard along Interstate 240 will keep churning guards and losing contracts to companies that made the harder choice.
The staffing numbers won’t lie to you. They haven’t started yet.