Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Amy New said the presence of Tennessee Tech provides a critical labor pool to staff the hundreds of new retail positions opening this October.
New said the university environment in the center of the Upper Cumberland allows the region to comfortably support massive operations like Home Depot and Target. The local workforce is also being supplemented by former employees of the recently closed Perdue plant in Monterey and O’Charley’s on Interstate Drive.
“Our labor force participation rate is somewhat low still,” New said, “Lower than we would like for it to be, and same with our unemployment rate. But again, those numbers don’t include our university as well so that really skews the numbers too because we have 10,000 students here.”
New said the high-profile nature of these global brands attracts workers from as far away as Fentress County and Van Buren County. While many roles are part-time positions for high school and college students, the management and full-time opportunities offer competitive wages for the retail and restaurant sectors.
“They do have great wages, especially in the retail sector,” New said. “And some of our restaurants over there will be paying very well, like In-N-Out, and when Chewy’s does officially announce, I know there has been some movement on that, but they too have great wages for their cooks and kitchen and they employ many college students as their servers.”
New said the new developments at the Willow Center are not expected to create a significant labor shortage for existing businesses. Recent communications with Target and Home Depot indicated the stores were nearly fully staffed with very few employees leaving other local retail establishments to take the new jobs.
“I would say that there will be a little bit of shift in that, but I think there are plenty of jobs to go around,” New said. “I really feel like there’s enough people to go around for all of these roles for these positions, and so I don’t see it pulling too much from our other retailers.”
New said the arrival of these retailers marks the end of a recruitment effort that began in the early 2000s. Data from the company showed that 10 to 20 percent of credit card transactions at Target locations in Mt. Juliet and Farragut originated from Upper Cumberland residents, representing a significant loss of local tax revenue.
“We’ve heard students say they didn’t choose here because there was not a Target,” New said. “So that’s just another amenity or another shopping brand for our incoming or prospective university students to have here locally.”
New said the Chamber of Commerce is planning a campaign for later this year to encourage shoppers visiting the new interstate-adjacent developments to also support small businesses in the heart of the community.