IKEA Opens at Tulsa Hills This Fall and Is Hiring at $18.50 an Hour

Published: September 2, 2026 | By LocalJobPage Team

TULSA, OK — The old Belk at Tulsa Hills is becoming the first IKEA in Oklahoma, and the hiring started before the doors did. Applications opened on July 15 for a starting wage of $18.50 an hour, and the first hires are expected to be on the clock in early September, weeks ahead of the store opening to the public this fall.

Two and a half times the Oklahoma minimum wage, in a metro where the legal floor has not moved since 2009.

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📍 At a Glance

Business	IKEA Tulsa, the first IKEA location in Oklahoma
Opening	Fall 2026. An exact opening date has not been announced.
Location	The former Belk building, Tulsa Hills shopping center
Size	About 51,000 square feet
Concept	IKEA "city store" format, a compact layout rather than the full warehouse store
Starting pay	$18.50 an hour
Roles	Customer service, sales, food service, logistics, merchandising, plus leadership and keyholder positions
Schedules	Full-time, part-time and seasonal
Hiring status	Open since July 15, 2026. First hires expected to start early September.
Apply	seeacareerwithus.com

🔥 Why This One Is Worth Paying Attention To

Retail openings come and go in this metro. This one is different for two reasons, and neither of them is the meatballs.

The first is the wage. $18.50 an hour is more than two and a half times Oklahoma's legal minimum, and it is a published number rather than a "competitive pay" line in a job ad. In a market where retail postings routinely run in the low teens, a national retailer opening at $18.50 resets what a Tulsa retail worker can reasonably ask for at every other store in the county.

The second is the format. At roughly 51,000 square feet, this is not the blue box off the interstate that most people picture. IKEA's city store format is a compact layout built around ordering, planning and pickup rather than a warehouse floor. The staffing mix skews differently than a traditional big-box store: more customer service and design support, more logistics and order fulfillment, less of a giant sales floor.

The City of Tulsa announced the project in February, projecting $30 million to $40 million in annual retail sales and north of $100 million in indirect regional impact. Mayor Monroe Nichols's office framed it as a signal about where Tulsa sits on national retailers' maps.

💼 The Jobs

IKEA has been recruiting across the store's full range of hourly work:

Customer service — the front line of a store built around orders and pickups
Sales and design support — helping customers plan kitchens, storage and bedrooms
Food service — the restaurant and cafe side
Logistics and goods flow — receiving, order picking, replenishment
Merchandising — setting and maintaining room displays
Leadership and keyholder roles — the supervisory layer, typically the first roles filled

IKEA has not published a total headcount for the Tulsa store, so we are not going to invent one. What has been published is the wage, the categories, and the timeline. If you want a number, the honest answer is that a 51,000-square-foot store staffed across all of the above is a meaningful employer for the west side of the metro and not a Tulsa-Hills-sized job engine on its own.

📋 How to Show Up Ready

Apply now, not at the opening. Hiring opened in July and first starts are in early September. The store is staffing ahead of the doors, which means the good schedules are being assigned before the public ever walks in.
Name your availability precisely. Retail openings hire on schedule flexibility more than on experience. "Evenings and weekends" beats "flexible."
If you have logistics experience, lead with it. A city-store format leans harder on order fulfillment than a normal store does, and that is the least contested applicant pool.
Ask about the seasonal-to-permanent path. Seasonal roles are listed alongside full-time and part-time. In new stores, seasonal is frequently the side door into a permanent line once the opening rush settles.
Apply through the company's own site. New-store openings attract fake listings. seeacareerwithus.com is IKEA's own careers site.

💵 The Wage Story Underneath This

Oklahoma's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. It has been $7.25 since 2009, because the state tracks the federal rate and the federal rate has not moved.

It was on the ballot this year and it did not change. On June 16, 2026, Oklahoma voters rejected State Question 832, which would have raised the minimum to $12.00 on January 1, stepped it to $15.00 by 2029 and then indexed it to the cost of living. More than 56 percent voted no. Supporters pointed at turnout in a June primary election. Opponents framed the result as protecting the state's affordability advantage. Either way the floor stayed where it was.

And Tulsa cannot fix it locally. Oklahoma law preempts the entire field: under 40 O.S. § 160, no municipality or political subdivision may set a minimum wage rate that employers are required to pay. The city has no authority here at all.

Which is exactly why an $18.50 posting matters more in Tulsa than the same number would matter in a state with a $15 floor. In Oklahoma, the market rate is the only rate. Employers who pay well here are doing it to compete, not to comply, and that means the number is negotiable in both directions depending on how tight the labor market is for your particular skill.

🔎 The Market IKEA Is Opening Into

Tulsa's numbers are mixed and worth knowing before you plan a fall job search around retail alone.

Metro unemployment sat at 4.5 percent in July 2026, a touch above Oklahoma's statewide 4.3 percent. Total nonfarm employment is essentially flat, up 0.2 percent over twelve months. The sector detail is where it gets interesting: construction is up 4.5 percent, professional and business services up 2.1 percent, education and health services up 1.7 percent and government up 1.2 percent, while manufacturing is down 1.7 percent, leisure and hospitality is down 4.5 percent and information is down a steep 10.6 percent.

There is also a layoff on the calendar. PepsiCo filed a WARN notice in July covering 184 warehouse positions in Tulsa, permanent, effective November 15. The production facility itself stays open.

The counterweight is capital. In the second quarter alone, state records show Meta Platforms committing more than $1 billion to a Tulsa-area data center with 100 jobs, Genesis Systems bringing 80 jobs on a $250 million investment, and Quantum Space adding 50-plus. Those are slower-burning than a store opening, and they point at a different Tulsa than the one hiring cashiers this month.

🚨 Also Hiring Right Now

If IKEA is not your shape, two other doors are open this month with no waiting:

Tulsa State Fair — the fair runs October 1 through 11 at Expo Square, 4145 E. 21st St. Seasonal hiring covers paid parking attendants, security guards, ticket sellers and scanners, environmental services and food and beverage. Apply through the fair's own jobs page, and apply early — the fair says plainly that applicants outnumber the jobs available.
City of Tulsa — municipal hiring runs year-round and government was one of the four growing sectors in this metro over the past year.

What It Means for Job Seekers

Here is the practical read. Retail and hospitality in this metro are not booming — leisure and hospitality shed 4.5 percent of its jobs over the past year, heading into fair season no less. But a single national retailer opening at $18.50 an hour changes the reference point for everyone else on the west side. If you are working a Tulsa retail floor at $13 or $14 right now, an IKEA application is worth filing whether or not you want the job, because knowing what is on offer three miles away is leverage in your next scheduling conversation.

And if you want out of retail entirely, the growth in this metro is in construction, professional services, health care and government, in that order.

Start your job search here:

Frequently Asked Questions

When does IKEA Tulsa open?

Fall 2026. IKEA has not announced a specific opening date, but hiring began in July and first hires were expected to start work in early September.

What does IKEA Tulsa pay?

The published starting wage is $18.50 an hour across full-time, part-time and seasonal roles.

Where is the Tulsa IKEA located?

In the former Belk building at the Tulsa Hills shopping center. It is a roughly 51,000-square-foot city store rather than a full-size warehouse location.

How do I apply?

Through IKEA's own careers site at seeacareerwithus.com. Be cautious of third-party listings that appear around new store openings.

How many people is IKEA hiring in Tulsa?

IKEA has not published a headcount for the Tulsa store. It has published the wage, the role categories and the timeline.

Did Oklahoma raise its minimum wage in 2026?

No. Voters rejected State Question 832 on June 16, 2026 with more than 56 percent opposed. The state minimum remains $7.25 an hour, and Oklahoma law bars cities from setting their own rate.

Don't Wait for the Ribbon Cutting

New stores hire before they open and staff up hardest in the six weeks beforehand. Create a free LocalJobPage account and set alerts so new Tulsa openings reach you the day they post. Then browse the Tulsa Career Center for role-by-role guides.

Employers: a new national retailer just set the wage conversation on the west side. Post your openings on LocalJobPage and reach Tulsa job seekers every day.