Lowe’s opens new store in the South, raising competition for Home Depot

Lowe’s will open a new store in the South in early August, and the move lands as a local labor-market issue as much as a competitor headline. For Home Depot associates, the immediate question is whether another big-box hiring push in the same trade area will make it harder to staff stores, protect schedules and keep experienced workers from drifting toward the chain with the better hours, pay or path up.

Lowe’s is not treating the opening as a one-off. The company said its 2026 expansion plan already included five new stores in three states, after adding eight new or reopened stores and more than 800 associates in 2025. In its annual report, Lowe’s said it employs about 300,000 associates and operates more than 1,750 home improvement stores, 540 branches and 120 distribution centers, with fiscal 2025 sales topping $86 billion. That footprint means each new store becomes a local recruiting campaign, pulling from the same pool of hourly workers, department leads and people with contractor-facing experience that Home Depot stores rely on.

Home Depot is expanding, too. The company said in 2026 it plans to add 12 new U.S. stores across eight states, covering more than 1.6 million square feet, after opening 12 new stores in fiscal 2025. Home Depot has said it is building in high-growth areas and in places where it wants to relieve pressure on existing high-volume stores. Put together, the two chains are still growing side by side in the same markets, which is where workers feel the competition first: more hiring ads, more pressure on coverage and more attention on the people who can keep pro desks, lumber aisles and seasonal departments moving when demand spikes.

The labor backdrop is not national in the abstract; it is state by state and metro by metro. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ JOLTS data tracks monthly job openings, hires and separations by state, which matters because retail hiring is local even when the brand names are national. Lowe’s store-careers page says it is hiring for store jobs near customers, and Home Depot’s retail careers page advertises hourly store roles across its network. When both companies recruit at once, the signs tend to show up in practical ways: stronger starting offers, more overtime, tighter schedules and a faster push to cross-train or promote people who already know the building, the inventory and the contractor base.

The opening in early August is another reminder that store growth is a jobs story before it is a sales story. In a market where both chains are adding locations, the advantage goes to the store that fills shifts fastest, trains better and keeps the most reliable associates on the floor.