Manufacturing staffing in Knoxville, TN.
Production lines don’t stop for short staffing. We send assembly workers, machine operators, forklift drivers, and material handlers same-day to manufacturing facilities across Knox County, and honestly, we love keeping the floor running.
Key takeaways
- Labor Exchange is a family-owned staffing agency at 4408 Chapman Highway in South Knoxville. We dispatch same-day manufacturing crews to Knoxville, TN. Phone 865-247-4957.
- Every worker we send is a W-2 employee of Labor Exchange (never a 1099 contractor). We carry the payroll, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and pre-employment screening.
- Roles we fill in Knoxville manufacturing: assembly workers, machine operators, production line staff, packers, and material handlers.
- One all-in hourly rate covers worker pay, taxes, workers’ comp, and screening. One invoice. No minimums and no long-term contract.
Knoxville’s manufacturing sector runs along the I-40 and I-75 corridors, from the industrial parks in Forks of the River and Eastbridge to facilities in Halls, Karns, and the Pellissippi Parkway corridor. When a shift is short or a production run scales up, you need people on the floor before the line slows down, not the next day. Labor Exchange has been dispatching manufacturing workers from our Chapman Highway office in South Knoxville since 2012. No contracts, no long-term commitments, and workers who show up ready.
We are a family-owned company. Bill Peterson started it around 2012, and his wife Kelly runs it today. We are in the people business, so every worker we send is a W-2 employee of ours, pre-screened before they reach your plant. One rate covers their pay, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and screening, and drug testing or background checks are available on request. To start, a new worker brings two forms of ID for the I-9. Because our people can be paid the same day they work, dependable folks keep coming back, which is part of why our Google rating sits at 4.3 stars across 108 reviews.
Knoxville’s production base is more varied than people expect. Out in the Forks of the River Industrial Park, in the Shooks Gap area of southeast Knox County, you have established plants running real volume. The city carries a solid food and beverage and consumer-goods side, soups, sauces, packaged goods, and the kind of work that picks up fast when a retail order lands. There is an advanced-manufacturing side too, including medical-device makers and the plastics and injection-molding work that supports them. Different floors, different rhythms, but the same need: when a shift is short or a run scales up, somebody has to be on the line today.
We are not claiming any of those plants as our customers. We are just saying we know this town’s manufacturing well enough to send the right kind of worker to it. A food-production packing line and a medical-device assembly cell are not the same job, and we do not pretend they are. Tell us what your floor actually does and we match people to it, rather than sending whoever happened to be standing in the office.
Positions we staff
Every manufacturing role below is one we actively fill from our Knoxville worker pool.
Assembly & production
Line assembly, sub-assembly, kitting, and production support for repetitive and custom manufacturing processes.
Machine operators
CNC, press brake, injection molding, stamping, and general machine operation. Tell us your equipment and we match skill level.
Forklift drivers
Sit-down, stand-up, and reach truck operators for raw material staging, finished goods movement, and dock-to-floor transport.
Material handlers
Raw material staging, WIP movement between stations, finished goods transport, and inventory replenishment on the production floor.
Quality control
Visual inspection, measurement, sorting, rework, and QC hold processing. Workers who understand tolerances and don’t let bad parts through.
Packaging & shipping
End-of-line packaging, palletizing, shrink wrapping, labeling, and loading for outbound shipments.
Every shift, every surge
Manufacturing doesn’t run 9-to-5. Neither do we.
First, second, and third shift coverage. Overnights and weekends included. Tell us the start time and workers are there.
New product launch, seasonal demand spike, or big PO that just landed — we scale your floor crew up fast and back down without severance.
Third shift didn’t show and first shift starts in two hours. Call us. We backfill fast enough to keep the line moving.
Evaluate workers on your floor before making a permanent offer. See speed, quality, attendance, and culture fit in your actual environment.
Where we dispatch in Knox County
From our office on Chapman Highway, we cover manufacturing facilities throughout the Knoxville metro — typically arriving within 30 minutes of dispatch.
Forks of the River Industrial Park · Eastbridge Business Park · Pellissippi Parkway corridor · Hardin Valley · Halls · Karns · Cedar Bluff · West Knoxville · East Knoxville · Strawberry Plains · Mascot · I-40 corridor · I-75 corridor
Geography is half the job in this town. Forks of the River sits southeast of downtown, the bigger advanced-manufacturing and food plants spread west toward Hardin Valley, Cedar Bluff, and the Turkey Creek area, and there is steady work north through Halls, Powell, and Karns. From our office on Chapman Highway we are close to all of it, which is exactly why we can backfill a short shift before the line slows down instead of the next morning. When a worker lives twenty minutes from your plant, getting there for a 6 a.m. start or a same-day overtime call is realistic, not a coin flip.
We also dispatch manufacturing workers to Maryville, Alcoa & Blount County — home to Denso, Alcoa/Arconic legacy facilities, and a growing manufacturing base along the 411 corridor.
Temp-to-hire on a Knoxville production floor
See how someone actually works before you commit to a permanent hire.
A bad hire on a line in Knoxville costs you twice. Once for the recruiting and training you already put in, and again for the output you lose while you start over. That is the whole reason temp-to-hire makes sense for production work. You bring a worker on through us, watch them on your real floor for a stretch, their speed, their accuracy, whether they show up, how they fit the crew, and only then decide. When it is clearly a fit, we help you bring them on permanently. When it is not, you have not locked yourself into anything. It is the lower-risk way to build a steady crew, and honestly it is how a lot of our longest plant relationships started.
It works because we are local. We are not shipping you a name off a national list and hoping it sticks. Our crew lives across Knox County, so the person we send for a temp-to-hire trial is someone who can realistically keep getting to your plant if it turns into a permanent job. That sounds small until you have watched a promising hire fall apart over a commute. When good people flourish where they are planted, your floor runs smoother and your turnover drops, and that is the point of doing this well.
How it works
From first call to workers on your production floor.
Tell us what you need
Call 865-247-4957 or submit online. How many workers, what shift, what roles, any certifications or PPE requirements.
We match & dispatch
We pull from our pool of manufacturing-experienced workers. Forklift certs, steel-toe boots, safety vests — matched to your site requirements.
Workers hit the floor
Pre-screened workers arrive ready to work. Drug testing and background checks available upon request. You focus on production, not paperwork.
Frequently asked questions
Why a local crew matters on the line
A production line holds its pace when the right people show up. We know who they are.
Manufacturing in Knoxville competes with warehouse, construction, and hospitality for the same local people, and a line only runs when workers show up shift after shift and keep their pace steady. A staffing company far from here cannot promise that. We can, because our crew lives across Knox County and East Tennessee, not on a list somewhere. We know who is reliable for a 6 a.m. start, who can hold up to repetitive standing work for a full shift, and who already understands tolerances well enough to keep bad parts off the truck.
From our office on Chapman Highway we typically reach Knoxville-area plants within about 30 minutes of dispatch, so when a big purchase order lands and you need overtime coverage fast, local people are close enough to be there. Family-owned since 2012, we have grown by keeping local plants staffed through ramp-ups and quiet weeks alike. We would rather prove ourselves on one shift and grow into a standing relationship than overpromise on day one. When good people flourish where they are planted, your floor runs smoother and your quality holds.