Used plastic pallets in Louisville

Louisville's warehousing belt

Louisville/Jefferson County spans 12 counties (Clark, Floyd, Harrison, Washington, Bullitt, Henry...). In the counties where the Bureau of Labor Statistics can publish, private employers had 14,533 warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, 2.4% of local private jobs.

Louisville against Kentucky

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

Where a Louisville lot lands: the busy ZIPs

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 5 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 67 between them. 47130 (Jeffersonville) leads with 19, 28% of the listed total.

• 47130 Jeffersonville: 19 warehousing establishments, 1.1 times 40258.
• 40258 Louisville: 18 warehousing establishments, 95% of the count in 47130.
• 40299 Louisville: 14 warehousing establishments, 74% of the count in 47130.
• 40165 Shepherdsville: 9 warehousing establishments, 47% of the count in 47130.
• 40216 Louisville: 7 warehousing establishments, 37% of the count in 47130.

What the ratios say

Hidden counties mean Louisville's figure of 14,533 is the disclosed part of its warehousing work, not a ceiling.

• Louisville ranks 29th of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 14,533 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 12 counties, that is 1,211 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• Bullitt County holds 53% of the metro's jobs and Jefferson County 47%; the gap between them is 783 jobs.
• 47130 has 19 warehousing establishments, 2.7 times as many as 40216 (7) at the other end of the list.
• Kentucky has 38,281 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Louisville are 38% of the state.
• Warehousing is 2.4% 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 134,734 warehousing jobs along the route.
• The metros closest in size are Jacksonville (15,384, 851 above) and Orlando (13,928, 605 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 47130, 40258, 40299, hold 51 of the 67 establishments in the ZIP list, or 76%.
• The ZIP list spans 3 towns, led by Louisville (39) and Jeffersonville (19).
• The ZIP list averages 13.4 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 40216 Louisville, has 7.
• Of the 12 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 3 for warehousing, which together account for 14,519 of the 14,533 jobs counted.
• Louisville has 1.1 times the disclosed warehousing jobs of the median metro.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 41 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 12 counties.

Where Louisville ranks

Louisville and the 28 metros above it hold 84% of the 1,116,650 warehousing jobs across the 60 metros in the data. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368.

The roads a lot travels in Louisville

Interstate 65 is the Interstate in our data that serves Louisville.

Other metros nearby

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

The ladder around Louisville

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

Local industries that use pallets

Against the national share of employment, motor vehicle parts manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Louisville/Jefferson County, at 2.0x. Automotive plants reuse pallets in a loop and load them heavily, so ask for static and dynamic ratings and for one maker.

• Motor vehicle parts manufacturing: 4,707 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.9% of the 521,212 across the US, or 0.32 for every warehousing job here.
• Warehousing and storage: 14,533 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.8% of the 1,901,976 across the US, or 1.00 for every warehousing job here.
• Beverage manufacturing: 2,117 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.7% of the 316,938 across the US, or 0.15 for every warehousing job here.

Training the dock crew

• Show new staff three pallets: one acceptable, one marginal, one rejected.
• Agree on words for faults, such as crack, gouge, bow and dish, and use them.
• Tell people to stop and ask when a pallet carries any mark they do not recognise.
• Remind drivers to enter pockets squarely, since angled entry splits the pocket wall.
• Walk the dock together once a month and compare notes.

What to send for a Louisville lot

• Footprint: 48 x 45 in to match heavy-duty bulk containers
• Grade: a uniform closed-loop lot
• Dock ZIP, for example 47130 or 40258
• Quantity band

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