Used plastic pallets in Denver

Where the warehouses are in Denver

Count the jobs the BLS can disclose in Denver-Aurora-Centennial and you reach 15,858 in warehousing and storage for 2025, 1.1% of the metro's private work. The area covers 10 counties: Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Clear Creek, Denver, Douglas....

Denver against Colorado

The metro's disclosed-county total set beside the state's whole count, so the two can be read together.

Denver ZIPs to name on a request

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 5 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 118 between them. 80011 (Aurora) leads with 42, 36% of the listed total.

• 80011 Aurora: 42 warehousing establishments, 1.4 times 80239.
• 80239 Denver: 30 warehousing establishments, 71% of the count in 80011.
• 80216 Denver: 22 warehousing establishments, 52% of the count in 80011.
• 80238 Denver: 12 warehousing establishments, 29% of the count in 80011.
• 80022 Commerce City: 12 warehousing establishments, 29% of the count in 80011.

What the ratios say

County totals for Denver-Aurora-Centennial are floors, since the BLS hides counties with too few employers to publish; the 15,858 jobs are the disclosed part.

• Denver ranks 27th of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 15,858 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 10 counties, that is 1,586 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• Adams County holds 77% of the metro's jobs and Denver County 15%; the gap between them is 9,706 jobs.
• 80011 has 42 warehousing establishments, 3.5 times as many as 80022 (12) at the other end of the list.
• Colorado has 24,541 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Denver are 65% of the state.
• Warehousing is 1.1% of private jobs in these counties; where it is higher than average, pallets are a daily cost and sellers of surplus are common.
• The metros closest in size are San Antonio (16,751, 893 above) and Jacksonville (15,384, 474 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 80011, 80239, 80216, hold 94 of the 118 establishments in the ZIP list, or 80%.
• The ZIP list spans 3 towns, led by Denver (64) and Aurora (42).
• The ZIP list averages 23.6 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 80022 Commerce City, has 12.
• Of the 10 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 3 for warehousing, which together account for 15,562 of the 15,858 jobs counted.
• Denver has 1.2 times the disclosed warehousing jobs of the median metro.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 90 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 10 counties.

Where Denver ranks

Denver and the 26 metros above it hold 81% of the 1,116,650 warehousing jobs across the 60 metros in the data. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368.

Highways around Denver

No Interstate corridor in our data lists Denver, so the county and ZIP figures carry this page.

The ladder around Denver

Metros ranked by disclosed warehousing jobs: Denver with the two above it and the two below.

Who buys pallets around Denver

Against the national share of employment, warehousing and storage is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Denver-Aurora-Centennial, at 0.8x. Warehouses with automated storage need a consistent size for conveyors and a rack rating they can read.

• Warehousing and storage: 15,858 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.8% of the 1,901,976 across the US, or 1.00 for every warehousing job here.
• Grocery and related product wholesale: 10,938 jobs in the disclosed counties, 1.3% of the 829,364 across the US, or 0.69 for every warehousing job here.

Wear you can measure

• Deck bow: lay the straight edge across and slide a feeler between it and the deck.
• Runner flattening: compare the thickness of a worn runner with an unworn one.
• Corner loss: hold a square against the corner and note any missing plastic.
• Pocket height: measure the opening at both ends of each fork pocket.
• Weight: weigh three pallets on a platform scale and note the spread.

Photographs worth taking

• One wide shot of each stack with a tape or a person for scale.
• The four corners of a sample pallet, close enough to show gouges.
• The underside, including the runners and the bottom of each fork pocket.
• Any plate, label, moulded number or mark, shot square on and in raking light.
• Repairs and cracks, with a coin or a ruler beside them to show size.

Requesting a lot for Denver

• Footprint: 48 x 40 in, one maker
• Grade: used and clean with a stated rating
• Dock ZIP, for example 80011 or 80239
• Quantity band

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