Used plastic pallets in Portland

Where the warehouses are in Portland

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro spans 7 counties (Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington, Yamhill, Clark...). In the counties where the Bureau of Labor Statistics can publish, private employers had 8,157 warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, 0.8% of local private jobs.

Portland against Oregon

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

Portland ZIPs to name on a request

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 5 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 83 between them. 97230 (Portland) leads with 26, 31% of the listed total.

• 97230 Portland: 26 warehousing establishments, 1.0 times 97203.
• 97203 Portland: 26 warehousing establishments, 100% of the count in 97230.
• 97210 Portland: 11 warehousing establishments, 42% of the count in 97230.
• 97217 Portland: 10 warehousing establishments, 38% of the count in 97230.
• 97015 Clackamas: 10 warehousing establishments, 38% of the count in 97230.

What the ratios say

County totals for Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro are floors, since the BLS hides counties with too few employers to publish; the 8,157 jobs are the disclosed part.

• Portland ranks 38th of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 8,157 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 7 counties, that is 1,165 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• Multnomah County holds 91% of the metro's jobs and Clark County 4.3%; the gap between them is 7,085 jobs.
• 97230 has 26 warehousing establishments, 2.6 times as many as 97015 (10) at the other end of the list.
• Oregon has 16,750 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Portland are 49% of the state.
• Warehousing is 0.8% 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 86,962 warehousing jobs along the route.
• The metros closest in size are Milwaukee (8,262, 105 above) and Lancaster (6,994, 1,163 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 97230, 97203, 97210, hold 63 of the 83 establishments in the ZIP list, or 76%.
• The ZIP list spans 2 towns, led by Portland (73) and Clackamas (10).
• The ZIP list averages 16.6 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 97015 Clackamas, has 10.
• Of the 7 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 3 for warehousing, which together account for 8,109 of the 8,157 jobs counted.
• Reaching the median metro would take 1.7 times the disclosed warehousing jobs Portland has now.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 124 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 7 counties.

Where Portland ranks

Portland and the 37 metros above it hold 93% of the 1,116,650 warehousing jobs across the 60 metros in the data. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368.

Highways around Portland

Interstate 5 is the Interstate in our data that serves Portland.

Other metros nearby

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

The ladder around Portland

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

Who buys pallets around Portland

Against the national share of employment, food manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, 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: 13,772 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.8% of the 1,775,008 across the US, or 1.69 for every warehousing job here.
• Grocery and related product wholesale: 8,259 jobs in the disclosed counties, 1.0% of the 829,364 across the US, or 1.01 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 Portland lot

• Footprint: 48 x 40 in or 56 x 44 in
• Grade: like new or used and clean
• Dock ZIP, for example 97230 or 97203
• Quantity band

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