Used plastic pallets in Miami

Miami by county

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach spans 3 counties (Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach). In the counties where the Bureau of Labor Statistics can publish, private employers had 22,104 warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, 0.9% of local private jobs.

Miami against Florida

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

ZIPs with the most warehouses

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 5 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 131 between them. 33178 (Miami) leads with 39, 30% of the listed total.

• 33178 Miami: 39 warehousing establishments, 1.6 times 33172.
• 33172 Miami: 25 warehousing establishments, 64% of the count in 33178.
• 33122 Miami: 24 warehousing establishments, 62% of the count in 33178.
• 33069 Pompano Beach: 22 warehousing establishments, 56% of the count in 33178.
• 33166 Miami: 21 warehousing establishments, 54% of the count in 33178.

What the ratios say

The BLS leaves out counties where one employer would show through, so the 22,104 jobs counted for Miami may understate the metro.

• Miami ranks 17th of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 22,104 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 3 counties, that is 7,368 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• Miami-Dade County holds 59% of the metro's jobs and Broward County 26%; the gap between them is 7,365 jobs.
• 33178 has 39 warehousing establishments, 1.9 times as many as 33166 (21) at the other end of the list.
• Florida has 105,401 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Miami are 21% of the state.
• Warehousing is 0.9% of private jobs in these counties; where it is higher than average, pallets are a daily cost and sellers of surplus are common.
• One Interstate in the data serves the metro, and it carries 127,866 warehousing jobs along the route.
• The metros closest in size are Seattle-Tacoma (23,062, 958 above) and Kansas City (20,676, 1,428 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 33178, 33172, 33122, hold 88 of the 131 establishments in the ZIP list, or 67%.
• The ZIP list spans 2 towns, led by Miami (109) and Pompano Beach (22).
• The ZIP list averages 26.2 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 33166 Miami, has 21.
• Of the 3 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 3 for warehousing, which together account for 22,104 of the 22,104 jobs counted.
• Miami has 1.6 times the disclosed warehousing jobs of the median metro.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 110 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 3 counties.

Where Miami ranks

Miami and the 16 metros above it hold 65% of the 1,116,650 warehousing jobs across the 60 metros in the data. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368.

Corridors through Miami

Interstate 95 is the Interstate in our data that serves Miami.

Other metros nearby

Metros that share a corridor with Miami, and the other metros in Florida, with their disclosed warehousing jobs.

The ladder around Miami

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

Miami's pallet-using trades

Against the national share of employment, grocery and related product wholesale is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, at 1.7x. Grocery wholesale runs on the 48 x 40 GMA footprint through racks, trailers and conveyors.

• Grocery and related product wholesale: 27,032 jobs in the disclosed counties, 3.3% of the 829,364 across the US, or 1.22 for every warehousing job here.
• Warehousing and storage: 22,104 jobs in the disclosed counties, 1.2% of the 1,901,976 across the US, or 1.00 for every warehousing job here.

Sorting a lot into piles

• Pile one: whole pallets with flat decks, square corners and no repairs.
• Pile two: whole pallets with a repair or a mismatched piece, kept separate and counted.
• Pile three: pallets with a crack through a load path, set aside for repair or scrap.
• Pile four: marked pallets that may belong to someone else, held until the owner is known.
• Write the pile count on a board by the stacks, and photograph it each morning.

On the receiving dock

• Count stacks before pallets, then count the pallets in two stacks to confirm the tally.
• Lay a tape across the deck and along the runners of three pallets from different stacks.
• Look for pooled marks, bar codes and moulded owner names before anything is put away.
• Sign for the count and note any shortfall on the delivery receipt in the driver's presence.
• Photograph the stacks from both ends while the trailer doors are still open.

What to send for a Miami lot

• Footprint: 48 x 40 in
• Grade: used and clean
• Dock ZIP, for example 33178 or 33172
• Quantity band

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