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Amazon Plans Two Mid-South Facilities

An Amazon fulfillment center, photo courtesy Amazon.

Amazon is upping its presence in the Mid-South with two new facilities: a delivery station in North Memphis and a fulfillment center in Byhalia, Mississippi.

The company expects to employ hundreds at each facility and will pay a starting wage of $15 per hour plus benefits.

The delivery station on Hawkins Mill Road is expected to launch next year. It is part of Amazon’s last-mile delivery efforts to speed up deliveries for customers in the region. Packages are transported to delivery stations from fulfillment and sorting centers, and then loaded into vehicles for delivery to customers.

Amazon has more than 250 delivery stations in the U.S., four of which are in Tennessee.

“Amazon has confidence in our city and our workforce,” said Ted Townsend, chief economic development officer for the Greater Memphis Chamber. “With the addition of hundreds of new jobs at their North Memphis facility, Amazon will now employ over 5,000 Memphians. Working together to bring those jobs to Memphis include our partners at the State of Tennessee, City of Memphis, Shelby County, MLGW, TVA, EDGE and Workforce Midsouth.”

The company says it has invested more than $8.9 billion across the state, including infrastructure and compensation, which has contributed an additional $8.7 billion to the Tennessee economy and has helped create more than 12,700 indirect jobs on top of Amazon’s direct hires.

The Byhalia fulfillment center, expected to open later this year, will use new technologies to pick, pack, and ship larger customer items such as mattresses, kayaks, grills, and exercise equipment.

Amazon says it has created more than 2,000 full- and part-time jobs in Mississippi since 2010. The company says it has invested more than $120 million across the state, including infrastructure and compensation. These investments have contributed an additional $100 million to the state’s economy and have helped create more than 1,000 indirect jobs above Amazon’s direct hires.

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Officials Highlight Importance of Employment in Ex-Offender Reentry Process

Gov. Bill Lee speaks about helping ex-offenders find employment.

Officials gathered at the University of Memphis Tuesday to discuss the importance of helping those who’ve been incarcerated find employment.

The forum, organized by the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission, the Public Safety Institute at the University of Memphis, the Greater Memphis Chamber, and the Tennessee Department of Corrections, was meant to help local employers connect with and hire ex-offenders.

Local employers heard from local and state officials, law enforcement, and organizations that assist in reentry through skills training, education, and support.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, who was at the forum, said that the way that the government assists formerly incarcerated individuals in the re-entry process has been a “long-time passion” of his. Lee said his administration has “made a strong commitment to the whole idea of criminal justice reform.”

Fifty percent of recently incarcerated men in the state commit another crime within the first three years of being released, and as a result return to prison, Lee said.

“The cost of doing nothing isn’t zero,” Lee said. “Victims pay the price. Families pay the price. Taxpayers pay the price. And there is a tremendous human costs added to all of that.”

Lee said his administration has a role to play, but “as much as state government can do, government is not the answer to solving the issues we face in society. It’s not the answer to criminal justice reform. ”

One of the other key players in the process of reentry is the private sector, Lee said. Without the private sector’s involvement, “we’re never going to get where we need to be.”

“Part of being tough on crime and smart on crime is finding ways for those who come out find meaningful employment and that’s what today’s about,” Lee said.

Lee, who said he’s “had a long history” with reentry efforts, was involved in a prison reentry program about 20 years ago, where he mentored men coming out of prison who were going back into society.

Through that, the governor said he learned how important the re-entry process is in reducing recidivism. “If we really want to reduce crime, then we need to reduce recidivism and one of the ways we do that is to strengthen our re-entry programs.”

“When we make re-entry more successful, we save taxpayers’ money because we lower the recidivism rate and ultimately lower the crime rate. We enhance workforce development through creating skilled workers. The key is connecting employers with those that are coming out and breaking down the stigma, making them understand that it’s a real opportunity for them.”

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Still, Lee said he believes that “we need to be tough on crime.”

“We need to be tough on violent offenders and crack down on those that are a threat to society,” Lee said. “We can do that and at the same time be smart in recognizing that once people have paid their penalty, they are coming out.

This is not a matter of being soft on those who are incarcerated. This is about those that are coming out and how it is that we make them successful in their re-entry so they don’t recommit a crime and have another victim and another taxpayer expense.”

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland was also at the symposium Tuesday. Like the governor, Strickland said since he was elected into office in 2016, one of his priorities has been reducing recidivism and helping ex-offenders get back on their feet.


“The importance of what we’re doing today cannot be understated,” Strickland said. “A big part of life is forgiveness, second chances, and lending a helping hand to those in need when and where we can. I’m a firm believer that what we’re working on here today will have a long-lasting impact on every neighborhood in our city.”

Strickland said helping those who’ve been incarcerated find better opportunities through employment will ultimately lower the crime rate and improve the greater Memphis economy.

This discussion comes the same day Lee ceremonially signed a bill into law that eliminates the $180 expungement fees for people with certain criminal charges to have their records cleared.

Lee officially signed the bill in May and it will take effect July 1st. Two years ago, former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam halved the fee from $360 to $180.

Lee said the latest measure is another effort to remove the barriers formerly-incarcerated Tennesseans face upon re-entry and help them find employment.

“We need to remove those obstacles for those who’ve served their sentences and paid the price for their crime,” Lee said. “We need to remove obstacles to make it easier for them to re-enter.”

I think anything we can do to remove a barrier for someone who has re-entered or in the process of working, trying to get their feet back under them, trying to be a taxpayer, instead of a tax taker, we improve their success rate and expungement fee reductions will improve that process.”

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State Unemployment Rate Historically Low Third Month in a Row

CREDIT: Department of Labor and Workforce Development

The unemployment rate in Tennessee remained historically low across the state last month, according to state officials, but Memphis has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state.

The state unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in July for the third month in a row, according to a   

report released Thursday by Gov. Bill Haslam and Burns Phillips, commissioner of the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development.


Memphis’ June unemployment rate was one of the highest in the state at 5.2 percent, according to the latest data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At 3.2 percent, Nashville had the lowest rate in the state. The national unemployment rate stands at 3.9 percent.

In Tennessee, 2,500 new, non-farm job were created between June and July this year.

“Tennessee’s economy is strong and that shows in both a continuous low unemployment rate and the creation of more new jobs,” Haslam said. “We have worked hard to get to where we are, by creating an environment in Tennessee where businesses can thrive and building strong workforce development programs that are paying off for both citizens and employers.”

In the past year, nonfarm employment has increased by sum 56,300 jobs, according to state officials.

“It’s encouraging to see so many new jobs coming to Tennessee,” Phillips said. “We have the state’s business services teams out in communities across the state, working closely with companies, to ensure they have a qualified workforce to fill those positions.”

Department of Labor and Workforce Development

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Opinion

Help Wanted

Stories about jobs and the economy are easy to skip, even when they run on the front page of the paper, as happened Tuesday in The Commercial Appeal. They’re abstract, and the big numbers are hard to grasp — “the state will generate an estimated 31,900 new jobs, a gain of about 1.2 percent compared with 2006’s 1.3 percent gain.”

I know the story is important, but it lost me. Jobs are personal. If you don’t have one, you’re probably job-obsessed. If you don’t like the one you have, then you are probably looking for a better one, and the numbers don’t begin to tell the story.

David Ciscel teaches a course at the University of Memphis called “Good Jobs and Bad Jobs in Memphis.” He invited me to talk to his class this week. Several years ago, I interviewed him for a story I wrote about warehouse work, so I think that’s why he called. Or maybe he knows something about the business of print journalism these days. Anyway, to get ready, I spent Sunday morning reading the “Help Wanted” ads in the paper.

I found jobs that pay $7 an hour, jobs that pay $100,000 a year, jobs that pay an unspecified amount, jobs in music, jobs with catchy come-ons, jobs with brutally honest descriptions, jobs that I could see myself doing, and jobs that I couldn’t imagine doing.

“So you’ve always wanted to drive a tour bus,” said one ad. “Here’s your chance.” Actually I haven’t, and it sounds awfully stressful. But Coach USA of Memphis has several positions available with “good first-year earning potential.”

Continuing the tourism theme, Graceland is looking for a “merchandise supervisor” to oversee gift shops and the people who work in them. The job requires “handling employee issues and resolving employee and guest complaints” as well as the ability to “work under pressure while maintaining confidentiality.” It sounds challenging and interesting. Weekends and holidays required. The pay is not mentioned.

At the bottom of the tourism-and-entertainment pyramid are the jobs as housekeepers at the Tunica casinos. One job, which is temporary, requires working three different shifts including overnights and pays $7 an hour.

Card dealers at the casinos are also in demand. Applicants have to be accepted to dealer school for seven weeks of unpaid training, five days a week, four hours a day. The school is free, but the ad doesn’t say how much dealers can expect to earn.

Honey-Baked Ham is looking for telemarketers. The pay is $8 to $10 an hour. I had no idea they use telemarketers, and although I get lots of telemarketing calls around dinnertime when I’m looking for something to eat, I have never gotten one from Honey-Baked Ham, which seems odd.

Telemarketing jobs are always available, and filling them must be a challenge given the number of cranky people like me on the other end of the line. A Verizon ad requires “a high degree of scheduling availability,” which sound like nights and weekends, at $10 an hour. A clever ad for a “credit reporter” says it requires a college degree and involves “heavy phone work” but in a “fun business-casual atmosphere.” It pays $10 to $11 an hour. Other call-center ads specify that only inbound calls are involved, which I take to mean complaints.

If telemarketing can be “fun,” then it should not be surprising that an ad for a janitor at $9.50 an hour describes the position as “floor technician.” Or that an ad for a receptionist/sales rep at Massage Envy emphasizes the “professional atmosphere.”

The earnings potential of some jobs seems surprisingly high — “lawn care, earn $40,000 to $50,000 or more” — while the quoted salary for other jobs seems low — “construction project manager” and coordinator of State Building Commission projects for the University of Memphis, at $28,244 to $40,290. And we wonder why the FedExForum parking garage ran into problems. An apartment complex is looking for a maintenance person able to do plumbing and electrical work and fix appliances for $15 an hour. What homeowner in need wouldn’t happily pay three times that?

As America’s Distribution Center, Memphis has lots of jobs involving trucks and warehouse work. There are four full columns of driver ads, with many promising “$50,000 annually” plus a signing bonus. FedEx Ground needs package handlers at $9.50 an hour, but there is the promise of raises and benefits after 90 days. For what it’s worth, that’s 50 cents more than the job paid when I did my little stint as a warehouse worker eight years ago. Another company needs a “truck washer” for $1,600 a month. And Exel Supply Chain Management needs a forklift driver at $9.75 an hour.

The prize for full disclosure goes to Sherwin-Williams, which needs “production operators” able to do “constant, repetitive lifting, turning and twisting of 50 pound loads,” plus stair-climbing, frequent 75-pound loads, standing for long periods, and donning protective equipment. Pay is not mentioned, and the job is only for six months. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Crime being what it is, security guards are in demand, but the job doesn’t pay much. Christian Brothers University is looking for them at $9 an hour, Murray Guard Inc. pays $7 to $9 an hour, and Imperial Security is looking for 50 guards at $500 to $700 a week plus overtime and 10 patrol drivers at $35,00 to $40,000 a year. For security of a different kind, the University of Memphis is seeking residence-hall coordinators, starting at $25,543 plus an apartment with utilities.

There are jobs out there for barbers and for bass guitarists who can play gospel music on Sundays. Pay not disclosed. Christian Brothers High School needs a chemistry teacher, preferably with a master’s degree, for an unspecified salary. Waffle House is looking for managers at $30,000 to $35,000 a year.

There are nearly two full pages of job listings in the medical field. There is an ad for a nurse practitioner that pays $100,000. Registered nurses can make over $50,000. With typical naivete, I sang the praises of a nursing career to my wife, who used to be a nurse. She reminded me that the hours can be brutal, along with other factors.

“Human excrement,” she said. “Lots of it.”