Used plastic pallets in Chicago

Where the warehouses are in Chicago

Count the jobs the BLS can disclose in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin and you reach 59,586 in warehousing and storage for 2025, 1.5% of the metro's private work. The area covers 13 counties: Cook, DuPage, Grundy, McHenry, Will, DeKalb....

Chicago against Illinois

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

Chicago ZIPs to name on a request

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 5 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 133 between them. 60446 (Romeoville) leads with 36, 27% of the listed total.

• 60446 Romeoville: 36 warehousing establishments, 1.2 times 60638.
• 60638 Chicago: 31 warehousing establishments, 86% of the count in 60446.
• 60436 Joliet: 24 warehousing establishments, 67% of the count in 60446.
• 60440 Bolingbrook: 22 warehousing establishments, 61% of the count in 60446.
• 60007 Elk Grove Village: 20 warehousing establishments, 56% of the count in 60446.

What the ratios say

County totals for Chicago-Naperville-Elgin are floors, since the BLS hides counties with too few employers to publish; the 59,586 jobs are the disclosed part.

• Chicago ranks 3rd of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 59,586 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 13 counties, that is 4,584 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• Will County holds 43% of the metro's jobs and Cook County 27%; the gap between them is 9,300 jobs.
• 60446 has 36 warehousing establishments, 1.8 times as many as 60007 (20) at the other end of the list.
• Illinois has 80,071 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Chicago are 74% of the state.
• Warehousing is 1.5% of private jobs in these counties; where it is higher than average, pallets are a daily cost and sellers of surplus are common.
• 2 Interstates in the data serve the metro, and together they carry 290,514 warehousing jobs along the route.
• The metros closest in size are Dallas-Fort Worth (82,593, 23,007 above) and Atlanta (49,050, 10,536 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 60446, 60638, 60436, hold 91 of the 133 establishments in the ZIP list, or 68%.
• The ZIP list spans 5 towns, led by Romeoville (36) and Chicago (31).
• The ZIP list averages 26.6 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 60007 Elk Grove Village, has 20.
• Of the 13 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 3 for warehousing, which together account for 49,782 of the 59,586 jobs counted.
• Chicago has 4.4 times the disclosed warehousing jobs of the median metro.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 66 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 13 counties.

Where Chicago ranks

Chicago and the 2 metros above it hold 23% of the 1,116,650 warehousing jobs across the 60 metros in the data. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368.

Highways around Chicago

Interstate 65 and Interstate 80 are the Interstates in our data that serve Chicago.

Neighbouring metros in the data

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

The ladder around Chicago

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

Who buys pallets around Chicago

Against the national share of employment, pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, at 2.1x. Pharma shippers want pallets they can sanitise, with papers on resin and colour; some prefer polypropylene because it takes sterilisation.

• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing: 21,442 jobs in the disclosed counties, 6.1% of the 350,886 across the US, or 0.36 for every warehousing job here.
• Chemical manufacturing: 40,767 jobs in the disclosed counties, 4.6% of the 892,426 across the US, or 0.68 for every warehousing job here.
• Grocery and related product wholesale: 35,891 jobs in the disclosed counties, 4.3% of the 829,364 across the US, or 0.60 for every warehousing job here.

Comparing two lots fairly

• Use the same footprint for both, measured in the same units.
• Compare grade by wear, not by the seller's letter.
• Count makers present in each, since fewer makers means a more uniform lot.
• Compare the share of repaired pieces, and where the repairs sit.
• Set freight, timing and handling beside the wear, rather than in place of it.

Requesting a lot for Chicago

• Footprint: 48 x 40 in or a square footprint
• Grade: like new
• Dock ZIP, for example 60446 or 60638
• Quantity band

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