Concrete crew staffing in Knoxville, TN.

Form-setters, finishers, flatwork hands, and laborers for footings, slabs, sidewalks, driveways, and commercial pours. Pre-screened, W-2, and dispatched same-day from our office on Chapman Highway. We’re family-owned, and we’d love to help you get the pour off on time.

Call 865-247-4957
Get concrete crew workers →

Key takeaways

Labor Exchange dispatches concrete crews to Knoxville, TN job sites from our office at 4408 Chapman Highway in South Knoxville. Same-day, most days. Phone 865-247-4957.
We send form-setters, finishers, flatwork hands, and concrete laborers for residential driveways, sidewalks, footings, slabs, and commercial flatwork pours.
Every concrete worker we send is a W-2 employee of Labor Exchange. We carry the payroll, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and pre-employment screening. That matters a lot on a pour day when an OSHA inspector or a GC asks who is covering comp on your temporary crew.
One all-in hourly rate. No minimums, no long-term contract. You tell us the pour time, the size of the slab, and how many hands you need, and we tell you straight whether we can cover it.

Concrete days are honestly the days we live for. The phone rings before the office is fully open, a foreman has a truck rolling and he is two finishers short, and there is no rescheduling a ready-mix delivery once it is on the way. We have been putting people to work on Knoxville concrete jobs since 2012, and most days we can cover the gap.

Our crew on the concrete side runs the gamut. We have experienced finishers who know how to read a slab in summer heat and pull a clean broom finish before it sets up, form-setters who can frame a footing or a driveway and snap a line that holds, and the laborers who keep the pour moving by wheeling concrete, screeding, and helping with edging. Every one of them is a W-2 employee of Labor Exchange, never a 1099 contractor, which is the only way we know to make sure the workers’ comp and the payroll taxes are actually being paid on the people standing in your forms.

The concrete workers we send

Concrete is a stack of different jobs that happen in a few hours, so the trick is sending the right mix of people to match the pour. Here is who we put on Knoxville sites.

Finishers are our most asked-for hand. These are the workers who know how to float, edge, broom, and trowel a slab so it cures with a surface a homeowner or a GC will sign off on. Some of our finishers have decorative-concrete experience for stamped patios and stained driveways, and a few have run commercial flatwork crews. Form-setters and form builders go out for footings, retaining walls, sidewalks, and driveway pours. They know how to brace a form so it does not blow out under the weight of fresh concrete, and they know what a Tennessee freeze-thaw cycle will do to a footing that was not dug deep enough.

Concrete laborers are the engine of the pour. They wheel concrete from the truck, handle the screed and the bull float, keep the rebar mat tied and chaired, and do the dozen things that let the finishers stay on the finishing. We send a mix that fits the slab size, two to four laborers for a residential driveway, more for a commercial pour.

Knoxville pours we get called for

Residential driveways and sidewalks are the steady drumbeat. West Knoxville, Hardin Valley, Karns, and Bearden all have new homes going up, and each one needs a driveway pour, a porch slab, and a set of sidewalks before the GC can close out the lot. Subdivisions in Powell and Halls run the same way. When a production builder calls, they usually have several lots on a single pour schedule, and they want the same crew showing up to keep the finish consistent from house to house.

Commercial flatwork is the other side of the work. Warehouse floors out near the Forks of the River Industrial Park, parking-lot pours along Chapman Highway, and the build-outs happening downtown all need flatwork crews that can hold a level over a long pour. The University of Tennessee area gets its share too. Cumberland Avenue student-housing sites need slab work and sidewalk pours on tight schedules with no room to stage, and that is the kind of pour where a finisher who has worked the area before is worth twice his rate.

How a concrete dispatch actually goes

Concrete dispatches are almost always early. The foreman is on site by 5:30 a.m., the truck is scheduled for 7, and the crew has to be there before the truck. Our office opens at 6:30 a.m. Monday through Friday, and on pour days we are often picking up calls before that. You tell us the address, the start time, how many finishers and how many laborers, and whether the site needs an OSHA-10 card on file. We tell you who we are sending and roughly when they will roll onto your job.

A worker brings two forms of ID, we handle the I-9 in under fifteen minutes, and they are your hands for the day. If the general contractor needs a Certificate of Insurance naming them before the first boot hits the dirt, tell us when you call. We can usually have a COI in your email within a business day, sometimes faster on a pour morning. Drug screening and background checks are available on request, and we run them ahead of the pour so the crew is cleared before they arrive.

Weather windows and Tennessee pours

East Tennessee weather is honestly one of the reasons concrete crews need a local staffing partner. Summer afternoons here will sit in the mid-90s, and a slab poured at 1 p.m. will flash-set on a finisher before he gets a chance to broom it. We learned a long time ago to start summer pours early. A 6 a.m. start beats the worst of the heat and gives the finishers a working window before the slab tightens up.

Winter pours are the other end. A hard Knoxville freeze does not happen every year, but when it does, the morning low can sit at 25 or 26 degrees for a week. Concrete still goes down, but it goes down with extra steps: blankets over the slab, heated water in the mix, and sometimes an accelerator. That kind of pour eats labor, because the slab has to be protected as soon as the finishers are off it. We try to send a crew that has seen a cold pour before, because the first time a laborer pulls a frozen blanket off a green slab is not the day you want him learning on your job.

Local matters on a pour day

National staffing agencies treat Knoxville as a pin on a map. Their recruiters sit out of state, and a pour day going sideways at 6 a.m. is not going to get a human voice on the line in time to fix it. We are right here on Chapman Highway. When you call, you talk to someone who knows our workers by name, knows whether a finisher can be trusted on a stamped patio, and knows how I-40 moves at sunrise.

Local also means a worker who actually gets to the gate. A concrete laborer who lives in South Knoxville knows the surface streets, knows where to park on a tight UT-area site, and knows that a 7 a.m. pour means boots on the dirt at 6:45. Drug testing and background checks are available on request.

Coverage

We dispatch concrete crews across Knox County, including downtown Knoxville, South Knoxville, West Knoxville, Hardin Valley, Bearden, Halls, Powell, Karns, Strawberry Plains, and the Forks of the River Industrial Park. We also cover Blount County (Maryville and Alcoa) and Sevier County for the hotel and cabin work happening in Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg. Back to Knoxville construction staffing →

Concrete crew staffing FAQs

How fast can you send a concrete crew to a Knoxville pour?

Same-day on most pours. Our office opens at 6:30 AM Monday through Friday, and on early-pour days we are often picking up calls before that. If you call us by 4 PM the day before, we can almost always have finishers and laborers on your site for a 6 or 7 AM start the next morning. First-time clients get the same dispatch speed as everyone else.

Are your concrete workers W-2 or 1099?

Every concrete worker we send is a W-2 employee of Labor Exchange. Never a 1099 contractor. Concrete is one of the higher-risk trades on a job site, and an injured worker who was misclassified as a 1099 can pull a general contractor into a workers’ comp claim or an OSHA review. With us, the payroll taxes and the workers’ comp are on our books, not yours.

What does it cost? How does pricing work for a concrete crew?

One all-in hourly rate per worker, billed by the hours worked. The rate covers the worker’s pay, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and any pre-employment screening you asked for. No setup fee, no minimum, no long-term contract. The rate varies a little by role. A finisher with stamped or decorative experience costs more than a general concrete laborer. Call us with the pour size and we will quote it on the phone.

What happens if a concrete worker does not show up?

Honestly, it happens. We try hard to keep no-shows rare by sending workers we know, but if someone does not roll onto your site by the agreed start time, you call us and we work on a replacement. On a pour day, time matters more than anything, so we are honest about how fast we can get someone else to you. If the gap means the pour has to slip, we own that conversation.

Are your concrete workers used to Tennessee weather pours?

Yes. Our crew has worked Knoxville summers, where the heat will flash-set a slab if you do not start early, and Knoxville winters, where a cold pour means blankets, heated water, and sometimes an accelerator. We try to send finishers who have seen both, because the first time a laborer pulls a blanket off a green slab is not the day you want him learning on your job.

Can you cover an early-morning concrete start in Knoxville?

Yes, and most of our concrete days are early starts. A 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. roll-on is normal for us. Knoxville pours tend to land at sunrise so the finishers have a working window before the heat builds, and our crew lives here, so they are not stuck in I-40 traffic at 6 a.m. when your truck is rolling.

Can you supply finishers for decorative or stamped concrete in Knoxville?

Some of our finishers have decorative-concrete experience, including stamped patios, stained driveways, and broom-finish flatwork. Decorative work is a higher skill level than a standard pour, so we ask up front what the job is and only send a finisher we know can do it. If we are not the right call on a particular decorative job, we will tell you straight.

Do you provide a Certificate of Insurance to the general contractor before a pour?

Yes. We provide a Certificate of Insurance naming the GC and any required additional insureds on workers’ comp and general liability, usually within a business day of the request. On a pour morning we can sometimes turn one around faster. Tell us when you call.