Used plastic pallets in Des Moines

Des Moines by county

Des Moines-West Des Moines spans 6 counties (Dallas, Guthrie, Jasper, Madison, Polk, Warren). In the counties where the Bureau of Labor Statistics can publish, private employers had 4,393 warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, 1.2% of local private jobs.

Des Moines against Iowa

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, 34 between them. 50313 (Des Moines) leads with 13, 38% of the listed total.

• 50313 Des Moines: 13 warehousing establishments, 1.9 times 50021.
• 50021 Ankeny: 7 warehousing establishments, 54% of the count in 50313.
• 50111 Grimes: 6 warehousing establishments, 46% of the count in 50313.
• 50317 Des Moines: 4 warehousing establishments, 31% of the count in 50313.
• 50035 Bondurant: 4 warehousing establishments, 31% of the count in 50313.

What the ratios say

The BLS leaves out counties where one employer would show through, so the 4,393 jobs counted for Des Moines may understate the metro.

• Des Moines ranks 48th of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 4,393 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 6 counties, that is 732 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• 50313 has 13 warehousing establishments, 3.3 times as many as 50035 (4) at the other end of the list.
• Iowa has 19,824 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Des Moines are 22% of the state.
• Warehousing is 1.2% 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 302,799 warehousing jobs along the route.
• The metros closest in size are Greenville-Spartanburg (4,575, 182 above) and Charleston, SC (3,242, 1,151 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 50313, 50021, 50111, hold 26 of the 34 establishments in the ZIP list, or 76%.
• The ZIP list spans 4 towns, led by Des Moines (17) and Ankeny (7).
• The ZIP list averages 6.8 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 50035 Bondurant, has 4.
• Of the 6 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 1 for warehousing, which together account for 4,393 of the 4,393 jobs counted.
• Reaching the median metro would take 3.1 times the disclosed warehousing jobs Des Moines has now.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 82 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 6 counties.

Where Des Moines ranks

Des Moines is one of the 13 smallest of the 60 metros by disclosed warehousing jobs. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368, which is 27 times as many.

Corridors through Des Moines

Interstate 35 and Interstate 80 are the Interstates in our data that serve Des Moines.

Other metros nearby

Metros that share a corridor with Des Moines, and the other metros in Iowa, with their disclosed warehousing jobs.

The ladder around Des Moines

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

Des Moines's pallet-using trades

Against the national share of employment, food manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Des Moines-West Des Moines, at 1.0x. Food plants ask for clean, odour-free, washable decks. Food-contact papers come from the maker, not from the grade.

• Food manufacturing: 4,620 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.3% of the 1,775,008 across the US, or 1.05 for every warehousing job here.
• Warehousing and storage: 4,393 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.2% 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.

What to send for a Des Moines lot

• Footprint: 48 x 40 in or 56 x 44 in
• Grade: like new or used and clean
• Dock ZIP, for example 50313 or 50021
• Quantity band

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