Warehouse staffing for Maryville & Alcoa.

Blount County’s warehouse and distribution footprint keeps growing. New fulfillment centers along the Pellissippi Parkway corridor, established distribution operations in Alcoa near McGhee Tyson Airport, and steady logistics demand across the county all run on people who show up ready to work. When a shift comes up short, orders fall behind and trucks sit at the dock waiting. That is the gap we fill.

Labor Exchange is a family-owned company right down the road in South Knoxville. Bill Peterson started it around 2012, and his wife Kelly runs it today. We dispatch same-day from our pool of pre-screened local workers, and every one of them is a W-2 employee of ours. One rate covers their pay, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and screening, so you get hands on the floor and we handle the rest. We are in the people business, and Blount County is home turf.

What warehouse work looks like in Blount County

Blount County is a real manufacturing county, and that shapes the warehouse work here. Big employers like Arconic, DENSO, Clayton Homes, and Smith & Wesson anchor the local economy, and around operations that size sits a whole web of supplier warehousing, parts distribution, and inbound and outbound freight. A lot of the dock and floor work in Maryville and Alcoa is tied to keeping those production lines fed and getting finished goods back out the door. That is steady, year-round work, and it runs on people showing up on time and ready.

The county also took a big step into large-scale fulfillment when Amazon opened its multi-story facility in Alcoa, named for the McGhee Tyson Airport code right next door. A building that size changes the labor market around it, and it raises the bar on what local warehouses need from a staffing partner. We are not the giant down the road, and we do not try to be. We are the family-owned crew that keeps the supplier warehouses, the parts operations, and the smaller distribution floors across Blount County covered when they come up short. That is our lane, and we are good at it.

Positions we fill

Every shift, every season

First, second, third shift, and weekends. When holiday fulfillment surges hit or a new facility opens along the Pellissippi Parkway corridor, we ramp your crew up without the long lead times of traditional hiring, then scale it back down when the run finishes. No severance, no layoffs, no unemployment claims for you to manage. Many of our Blount County warehouse clients run around the clock, and we keep shift-experienced people in our pool specifically so overnights and weekends are covered, not left short.

Temp-to-hire

Start with temporary workers and convert the best performers to your permanent payroll once you know they are a fit. You get to see their real speed, reliability, and attendance on your own floor before you commit to a direct hire, which takes the guesswork out of it. Many Blount County warehouse operations build entire shift teams this way, keeping the people who prove themselves. When you find someone who clicks with your crew, we work out the transition with you.

The roles we fill for distribution and supplier warehousing

Supplier and distribution warehouses in Maryville and Alcoa lean on a familiar set of roles, and we keep people in our pool for all of them. On the receiving side, unloaders and receiving hands break down inbound trailers, check freight against the paperwork, and stage parts and product so the line never waits on the dock. For operations feeding a production plant, that timing matters, because a late inbound can stall a whole shift downstream.

Inside the building, forklift operators and material handlers keep things moving between receiving, storage, and shipping. We match operators to your equipment, whether that is a sit-down, a stand-up, or a reach truck working tall racks, so nobody is learning your lift on the clock. On the outbound side, pickers, packers, and loaders pull orders, build pallets, and load trucks for distribution and e-commerce. And for the day-to-day, general warehouse hands handle palletizing, staging, cleaning, and cycle counts so the floor stays organized. Tell us your roles and we send people who already know the work.

Tied to the airport and the freight lanes

Alcoa has something most warehouse towns its size do not, which is a commercial airport handling air cargo right in town. McGhee Tyson moves freight as well as passengers, and that gives Blount County distributors a real edge for anything that has to move fast. Warehousing that feeds or draws from air cargo runs on tight timing, and tight timing runs on people who show up when they say they will. That is the whole job for us, and it is why a local crew beats a staffing company coordinating from another state.

The county is also putting real money into moving freight better, including reworking Alcoa Highway to ease the truck traffic tied to the bigger operations. As those lanes get busier, the warehouses along them need to staff up reliably, not scramble at the last minute. Because our crew lives right here in Blount County and East Tennessee, they already know the routes and the facilities, and they can be on your dock the same day. When you call, a real person on our team answers and we move, instead of routing you through a queue somewhere far from here.

What to expect when you call us

Call 865-247-4957 and a real person on our team answers. Tell us where your facility sits in Maryville, Alcoa, or along the Pellissippi corridor, 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 reach trucks or stand-up forklifts, tell us your equipment and we match operators to it. We will tell you honestly what we can fill and by when.

From there we dispatch from our local pool of pre-screened workers. To start, a new worker brings two forms of ID for the I-9, and if your site requires background checks or drug screening, just ask and we set it up. Every worker we send is a W-2 employee of ours, so one rate covers their pay, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and screening, with no extra paperwork on you. Because our people can be paid the same day they work, dependable folks keep coming back, which is exactly who you want at the dock.

Why a local crew matters for distribution work

A warehouse only runs when people show up shift after shift, and that is something a staffing company far from here cannot promise. We can, because our crew lives in Blount County and East Tennessee, not on a spreadsheet somewhere. We know who is steady for an early start and who can carry a long weekend during peak season. When the Pellissippi corridor gets busy, local people already know the facilities and the routes to get there on time.

Being close also means we are easy to work with day to day. We are a short drive from Maryville and Alcoa, so if a shift comes up short at the last minute, we are not coordinating across time zones to get you covered. You call, we answer, and we move. That is the advantage of a local family-owned company over a national chain that treats Blount County as a dot on a map.

Family-owned since 2012, we have grown by keeping local warehouses staffed through the surges and the slow weeks alike, and our Google rating of 4.3 stars across 108 reviews reflects that steady work. We are in the people business, and when good people flourish where they are planted, your orders go out on time.

Questions Blount County operations managers ask us

Frequently asked questions