MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A defense contractor that Tennessee courted with an expansion celebrated by the governor eight years ago is now permanently laying off 127 workers at its plant in rural Hardeman County, according to a notice filed with the state.
Kilgore Flares Company, LLC filed an official Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, known as a WARN notice, with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the department confirmed in a September 2 memorandum. The notice reports a permanent reduction in force effective October 31, 2026, at the company's facility at 155 Kilgore Drive in Toone. The total number of affected workers is 127. The company notified the state's Dislocated Worker Unit on September 1.
Kilgore Flares manufactures infrared decoy flares, a defense countermeasure used to divert heat-seeking missiles away from aircraft, for the United States military. The company has operated in Toone since 1960 and is part of Chemring Countermeasures USA, a division of the British defense firm Chemring Group. Toone is an unincorporated community in Southwest Tennessee with a population of fewer than 300 people, which means a 127-person layoff at a single plant is an economic event on the scale of the town itself.
The size of the cut is significant against the plant's own workforce. According to a report the company submitted to the state, the facility employed 308 people as of early 2021. A loss of 127 positions represents a substantial share of that count.
The layoff is notable for another reason. In 2018, then-Governor Bill Haslam and the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development publicly announced that Chemring would invest $40 million to expand the Kilgore Flares operation in Hardeman County and create approximately 100 jobs, a project state officials framed as evidence of Tennessee's ability to attract private investment to its rural communities. The state's economic development agency promoted the expansion as a win for the county. Eight years later, the same plant is filing to cut more workers than that expansion was projected to add.
According to the WARN notice, the affected employees are not represented by a collective bargaining agreement and do not have bumping rights, meaning they cannot displace less senior workers to keep a job. The Southwest Local Workforce Development Area rapid response team, operated by Workforce Innovations, has been notified to coordinate services with the employer and the affected workers, and the Southwest Local Workforce Development Board will oversee the rapid response and dislocated worker services. Hardeman County Mayor Todd Pulse said he has been in constant contact with state and local representatives about the situation.
What Affected Workers Can Do
Workers laid off in a WARN event are entitled to rapid response services coordinated by the state, which can include help filing for unemployment benefits, job placement, and retraining. Affected Kilgore Flares employees will be contacted through the Southwest Local Workforce Development Area rapid response team. Workers or family members seeking information can reach the state Dislocated Worker Unit at (615) 253-6355. These are established public services that laid-off workers are entitled to use, and connecting with the rapid response team early is the most direct route to them.
Why It Matters for the Mid-South
Hardeman County sits within the Memphis region's economic orbit, and a layoff of this size in a small rural community ripples outward through the families, suppliers, and local tax base connected to the plant. The added dimension here is public money. When the state uses incentives and public promotion to help a company expand, it is making a bet with taxpayer resources and its own credibility on the promise of jobs. When that same operation later contracts, the public has a legitimate interest in understanding what happened to the earlier commitment, and whether any incentives carried conditions tied to employment levels.
