Used plastic pallets in Kansas City

Kansas City's warehousing belt

Kansas City spans 14 counties (Johnson, Leavenworth, Linn, Miami, Wyandotte, Bates...). In the counties where the Bureau of Labor Statistics can publish, private employers had 20,676 warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, 2.2% of local private jobs.

Kansas City against Missouri

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

Where a Kansas City lot lands: the busy ZIPs

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 5 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 65 between them. 64161 (Kansas City) leads with 18, 28% of the listed total.

• 64161 Kansas City: 18 warehousing establishments, 1.3 times 64116.
• 64116 Kansas City: 14 warehousing establishments, 78% of the count in 64161.
• 64120 Kansas City: 13 warehousing establishments, 72% of the count in 64161.
• 66021 Edgerton: 11 warehousing establishments, 61% of the count in 64161.
• 66115 Kansas City: 9 warehousing establishments, 50% of the count in 64161.

What the ratios say

Hidden counties mean Kansas City's figure of 20,676 is the disclosed part of its warehousing work, not a ceiling.

• Kansas City ranks 18th of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 20,676 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 14 counties, that is 1,477 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• Johnson County holds 32% of the metro's jobs and Wyandotte County 31%; the gap between them is 264 jobs.
• 64161 has 18 warehousing establishments, 2.0 times as many as 66115 (9) at the other end of the list.
• Missouri has 26,726 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Kansas City are 77% of the state.
• Warehousing is 2.2% 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 282,076 warehousing jobs along the route.
• The metros closest in size are Miami (22,104, 1,428 above) and Cincinnati (19,940, 736 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 64161, 64116, 64120, hold 45 of the 65 establishments in the ZIP list, or 69%.
• The ZIP list spans 2 towns, led by Kansas City (54) and Edgerton (11).
• The ZIP list averages 13.0 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 66115 Kansas City, has 9.
• Of the 14 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 3 for warehousing, which together account for 16,326 of the 20,676 jobs counted.
• Kansas City has 1.5 times the disclosed warehousing jobs of the median metro.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 44 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 14 counties.

Where Kansas City ranks

Kansas City and the 17 metros above it hold 67% 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 Kansas City

Interstate 70 and Interstate 35 are the Interstates in our data that serve Kansas City.

Other metros nearby

Metros that share a corridor with Kansas City, and the other metros in Missouri, with their disclosed warehousing jobs.

The ladder around Kansas City

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

Local industries that use pallets

Against the national share of employment, warehousing and storage is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Kansas City, at 1.5x. Warehouses with automated storage need a consistent size for conveyors and a rack rating they can read.

• Warehousing and storage: 20,676 jobs in the disclosed counties, 1.1% of the 1,901,976 across the US, or 1.00 for every warehousing job here.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing: 3,433 jobs in the disclosed counties, 1.0% of the 350,886 across the US, or 0.17 for every warehousing job here.

Wear you can measure

• Deck bow: lay the straight edge across and slide a feeler between it and the deck.
• Runner flattening: compare the thickness of a worn runner with an unworn one.
• Corner loss: hold a square against the corner and note any missing plastic.
• Pocket height: measure the opening at both ends of each fork pocket.
• Weight: weigh three pallets on a platform scale and note the spread.

What to send for a Kansas City lot

• Footprint: 48 x 40 in, one maker
• Grade: used and clean with a stated rating
• Dock ZIP, for example 64161 or 64116
• Quantity band

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