Staffing agencies in Memphis: a warehouse temp market across three states

This report is for warehouse, plant and office managers choosing a Memphis-area agency, people looking for temp or permanent work through one, and B2B sellers whose customers are staffing firms.

The Memphis staffing market in Census data

The figures cover the Memphis, TN-MS-AR Metro Area (CBSA 32820) and two industry codes: NAICS 56131 (Employment Placement Agencies and Executive Search Services) and NAICS 56132 (Temporary Help Services). Source: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023.

The same Census file splits the two codes:

The Census Bureau publishes the placement and search figures for the 24 offices combined; its separate rows for the 19 placement agencies and 5 search offices carry high-noise employee figures, so they aren't shown.

Why the headcount is so large

Temp agencies are the employer of record for the people they place, so the 13,526 employees in temp help are mostly temps on assignment at distribution centers, plants and offices, with a small staff of recruiters. Placement and search firms are different: the people they place go onto the client's payroll and never appear in these figures. That's why Memphis temp help averages 68 employees per location and placement and search average 27.

The low average pay follows from the same fact. $34,918 is the payroll of mostly hourly warehouse and production temps, many of whom worked only part of the year, averaged with the recruiters who place them.

How big the agencies are

"Not published" means the Census Bureau withheld the cell for the two codes combined. For temp help alone, the published classes add up to all 200 locations, so the two unpublished top classes are zero: no Memphis temp help location had 500 or more employees in March 2023. The combined codes do publish one broad band: 73 establishments with 20 to 99 employees.

Where they are

"Not reported" means confidentiality noise changed the county total by 5% or more. Shelby County's temp help row alone is published: 167 locations with 10,813 employees. DeSoto County's 24 locations, all temp help, average 81 employees each. The county rows come from a separate Census tabulation and add up to 220, four fewer than the metro total.

County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees, not companies, so one national brand with five Memphis branches counts five times. It leaves out self-employed recruiters and professional employer organizations (NAICS 561330: 8 locations and 367 employees in the metro), and it measures one week in March, before the fourth-quarter peak. No staffing company listed on a US exchange is headquartered in the Memphis metro, according to SEC EDGAR.

Types of agency and when to use them

Three states, one labor market

A Memphis agency may place the same worker in Tennessee one week and Mississippi the next, and the rules follow the work site:

Discrimination law follows the worker too. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's guidance on temp workers says staffing firms and their clients "share EEO responsibilities": a client that controls the work can be liable as a joint employer, and an agency that learns a client has discriminated must take corrective action. Put both obligations in the contract. Ask, too, which state the agency's workers' compensation policy covers and whether it enrolls new hires in E-Verify.

Worked example: temps or overtime for the peak

Illustrative example. The company and rates are invented to show the arithmetic.

Bluff City Parts Depot (bluffcity.example) runs a distribution center in Southaven and needs 2,400 extra labor hours a week for the eight weeks before Christmas: 19,200 hours. Its own associates earn $18.00 an hour, or $27.00 on overtime. An agency quotes a $16.00 pay rate with a 45% markup: a $23.20 bill rate.

Then size the order. The plan needs 60 temps a shift; if 15% don't make it through the first week, order 60 ÷ 0.85 = 70.6, rounded up to 71, so the line is staffed. You pay only for hours worked, so the larger order doesn't change the cost, but it changes how hard the agency has to recruit. Ask each agency what share of last year's peak orders it filled.

How to vet a Memphis agency

1. Ask for its fill rate on orders like yours from last peak, by shift.
2. Visit the branch that will recruit for you and ask how many people it onboarded last week.
3. Get certificates for workers' compensation (covering the state your site is in) and general liability.
4. Read the contract for who trains, who supplies safety equipment and who handles a discrimination complaint.
5. Get the conversion schedule and the overtime bill rate in writing.
6. Check reviews on ClearlyRated, then call two clients with similar sites.

Job seekers: an agency is paid by the employer, so don't pay one to find you work. The Federal Trade Commission warns to walk away from any placement firm that asks for a fee.

Selling to Memphis staffing agencies

The buyers are the 44 temp help branches with 100 to 499 employees and the 65 with 20 to 99. A branch running three shifts of warehouse temps spends on screening, onboarding and timekeeping, safety equipment, forklift training, worker transport and workers' compensation. The 24 placement and search offices are small and buy recruiting tools. Time your outreach for August and September, when branches plan their peak hiring.

Start from the Greater Memphis Chamber and DeSoto County Economic Development Council for new and expanding distribution sites, then work back to the agencies that staff them. EDGE, the Memphis and Shelby County economic development agency, publishes a project database of incentive-backed expansions. Bebop can find the agencies that match a description, such as light industrial branches in Shelby and DeSoto counties with 50 to 250 employees, and explain why each fits. For a step-by-step approach, see how to build a prospect list.

Subject: Forklift-ready before peak

Hi [first name],

[Agency] is posting [number] forklift and reach truck openings for sites in [Shelby or DeSoto] County this month.

We run forklift training and evaluations at your branch on a weekday morning, so new hires arrive at the client already checked out on the equipment they'll use.

Could we hold a date in September before your peak orders land?

[Your name]

Local sources

Next step: see how a smaller, office-heavy market compares in the report on staffing agencies in Oklahoma City, or read the Memphis business overview.