Warehouse staffing in Knoxville, TN.

When you are short-staffed for a shift, orders fall behind and trucks sit at the dock waiting. That is expensive, and it is stressful for the crew you do have. Labor Exchange provides same-day warehouse staffing in Knoxville so you get hands on the floor before the shift starts, not the day after. We are a family-owned company based on Chapman Highway in South Knoxville, serving the city since 2012.

Bill Peterson started Labor Exchange around 2012, and his wife Kelly runs it today. We send pre-screened workers, and every one of them is a W-2 employee of ours, which keeps your billing simple: one rate covers their pay, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and screening. Drug testing and background checks are available on request whenever your site calls for them. We are in the people business, and our Google rating of 4.3 stars across 108 reviews comes from doing right by both the warehouses we staff and the people we put to work.

Why Knoxville runs on warehouse labor

Knoxville sits right where Interstate 40 and Interstate 75 cross, and that interchange is the reason so much freight moves through here. From a dock in Knox County, a truck can reach a huge share of the country inside two days, which is why distribution and fulfillment operations keep choosing this city. When you are running a warehouse along the I-40 east side or up toward the I-75 split, your floor lives or dies on whether the right number of hands clock in for the shift. That is the part we take off your plate.

East Knoxville carries a lot of that load. The Forks of the River Industrial Park off the John Sevier Highway, near the I-40 connection, is home to manufacturing and distribution operations, and the Strawberry Plains and Campbell Station corridors on the east side hold their own share of fulfillment and freight work. Knoxville is also a real food and beverage distribution town, with grocery, foodservice, and beverage operations that move product day and night. Those are the kinds of floors we staff, and the kind of volume our local crew is used to.

Positions we staff

Every shift, every season

We staff first, second, third shift, and weekends, and we keep shift-experienced people in our pool on purpose because overnights are the hardest to fill. For seasonal peaks like the holiday rush, back-to-school, and Q4 volume, we scale your crew up fast and back down again when the surge passes. No severance, no layoffs, no unemployment claims for you to manage. You carry only the headcount you actually need, when you need it.

Temp-to-hire

Evaluate workers on your own floor before making a permanent hire. You see their real speed, accuracy, attendance, and reliability in your environment first, which takes the risk out of a permanent offer. A lot of our Knoxville warehouse clients use this to build whole shift teams, keeping the people who prove themselves and moving on from the ones who do not fit. When you find someone who clicks with your operation, we work out the transition with you.

The roles we fill on the dock and the floor

A high-volume Knoxville warehouse is really a chain of jobs that have to line up, and a gap in any one of them backs up the whole floor. On the inbound side we send unloaders and receiving hands who break down trailers, scan freight in, and stage it so nothing piles up at the door. On the pick side we send order pickers and packers who can hold a steady pace on RF scanners or a pick-to-light wall, because at real volume the difference between a fast picker and a slow one shows up in your numbers by the end of the shift. On the outbound side we send loaders and shipping hands who build clean, safe loads and keep the trucks rolling on schedule.

Tying it together are the forklift operators and material handlers who keep product flowing between those stations. We match certified operators to your equipment, whether that is a sit-down rider, a stand-up, a reach truck pulling from high racks, or an order picker. If your operation needs cold-storage hands who can hold up in a cooler or freezer, tell us up front so we send people who are ready for it and dressed for it. The point is simple. We are not just sending bodies, we are sending the right role to the right spot so the floor keeps moving.

Scaling a third shift fast

Overnights and high-volume third shifts are where a lot of Knoxville operations struggle, because the people who will reliably work an 11 p.m. or a 5 a.m. start are not easy to find on short notice. We keep shift-experienced folks in our pool on purpose for exactly this reason. When you tell us you are standing up a new third shift or doubling an existing one for a volume push, we are not starting from scratch, we are calling people we already know can hold up overnight and show up the next night too. A request in by the afternoon is typically staffed by start-of-shift the next morning, including those early starts.

High-volume seasons are the same story at a bigger scale. When Q4 hits or a fulfillment surge lands, you might need to add a whole crew for a few weeks and then let it go when the run finishes. We ramp you up and back down without severance, layoffs, or unemployment claims landing on you. Honestly, that flex is the whole reason a lot of Knoxville warehouses keep us on speed dial. You carry the headcount you actually need on any given night, and not a person more.

What to expect when you call us

Call 865-247-4957 and you reach a real person on our team, not a call center. Tell us how many workers you need, which shift, and what roles, whether that is pickers and packers, forklift operators, dock loaders, or general warehouse labor. If you run sit-down, stand-up, or reach trucks, tell us your equipment and we match certified operators to it. We will be honest about what we can fill and by when, including early-morning and overnight starts.

From there we dispatch from our local Knoxville crew. To start, a new worker brings two forms of ID for the I-9, and if your facility requires drug testing or background checks, just ask and we arrange it. Our workers arrive pre-screened and ready to follow your floor supervisor. One rate covers their pay, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and screening, so there are no surprises on the invoice. Because our people can be paid the same day they work, dependable folks keep coming back to us, and that is who shows up for your dock.

Frequently asked questions