Used plastic pallets in Maryland

What the jobs data shows for Maryland

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts private employers in Maryland at 29,966 warehousing and storage jobs across 245 establishments in 2025, about 122.3 jobs per establishment.

• Harford County: 3,435 warehousing jobs, 11% of Maryland and 0.18% of the country, 1.3 times Prince George's County.
• Prince George's County: 2,664 warehousing jobs, 8.9% of Maryland and 0.14% of the country, 78% of the size of Harford County.
• Washington County: 1,842 warehousing jobs, 6.1% of Maryland and 0.10% of the country, 54% of the size of Harford County.

Maryland against the country

Maryland's figures sit on the left and the national totals beside them, so each share and rank shows how much of the country's pallet work lands here.

What the ratios say

Disclosure rules in the BLS data hide small counties, so the county totals for Maryland are a floor and not the whole of its 29,966 jobs.

• The three largest warehousing counties hold 27% of Maryland's jobs in the line.
• The average warehouse in Maryland employs 122.3 people where the national average is 81.5, a gap of 50 percent above it.
• Food manufacturing employs 0.65 people for every warehousing job in Maryland; across the US the ratio is 0.93.
• Maryland holds 1.1% of the nation's food manufacturing jobs and 1.6% of its warehousing jobs, so food is the lighter of the two lines here.
• Pharmaceutical manufacturing adds 9,019 jobs, 2.6% of the US total.
• Motor vehicle assembly accounts for 218 jobs in Maryland, 0.08% of the US total, with another 247 in parts.
• The 2 metros below account for 27% of the state's warehousing jobs, counting disclosed counties only.
• Harford County's 3,435 warehousing jobs are more than the whole state total of 9 other states, the largest being New Hampshire at 3,283.
• Indiana runs warehouses of nearly the same size, at 125.2 jobs per establishment against 122.3 here.
• For food manufacturing, Oklahoma is the closest match at 20,047 jobs, 447 above Maryland's 19,600.
• The smallest county the BLS shows for Maryland is Washington County with 1,842 jobs; the largest has 1.9 times as many.
• If warehousing jobs were split evenly across 50 states, each would hold 2.0% of the total; Maryland holds 1.58%, which is 0.79 times an even share.
• Wisconsin sits above Maryland with 3,088 more warehousing jobs, and South Carolina sits below with 2,816 fewer.

Where Maryland ranks

Maryland and the 19 states above it hold 81% of the country's 1,901,976 warehousing jobs between them. The median state has 23,211, so Maryland is 6,756 jobs above it; California, the largest, has 236,923, or 8 times as many.

The pallet-using lines in Maryland

By location quotient Maryland leans hardest on pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing (1.5x the national share). Pharma shippers want pallets they can sanitise, with papers on resin and colour; some prefer polypropylene because it takes sterilisation.

• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing: 9,019 jobs in Maryland, 2.6% of the 350,886 across the US, or 0.30 for every warehousing job in the state.
• Warehousing and storage: 29,966 jobs in Maryland, 1.6% of the 1,901,976 across the US, or 1.00 for every warehousing job in the state.

The ladder around Maryland

States are ranked by warehousing and storage jobs. Maryland is 20th of 50; the table shows the two states above it and the two below.

Metros we list in Maryland

2 metros in Maryland have a page with ZIPs, counties and corridors.

Paperwork to keep

• The written lot description and the date it was sent.
• Your own count, signed and dated by whoever received the load.
• Photographs of stacks, plates and any marks, stored with the order number.
• The maker's papers for resin, colour or rating, where the job needs them.
• A line naming who agreed to which exceptions, so a later dispute has a record.

What to write down about a lot

• Footprint in both units, with the readings you took rather than the label.
• Number of stacks, pallets per stack and any odd stacks left over.
• Makers and model numbers seen on plates or moulded into the ribs.
• Count of repaired, mismatched or cracked pieces, and where each sits.
• Marks, colours and any smell, with a note on who confirmed each.

What to put on a request from Maryland

USDA published no refrigerated warehouse figure for Maryland in its October 2025 count, so this page makes no cold-storage claim.

• Start with the footprint: 48 x 40 in or a square footprint
• Then the grade: like new
• Give the receiving ZIP in Maryland
• Name a quantity band, a few pallet-loads up to a truck

Other states

• Arkansas
• Colorado
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Illinois
• Kansas
• Massachusetts
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• Oregon

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