Used plastic pallets in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania in numbers

A pallet moves wherever a warehouse does, and Pennsylvania has 1,162 of them by the BLS establishment count, with 123,481 jobs between them and 106.3 per site on average.

• Luzerne County: 13,602 warehousing jobs, 11% of Pennsylvania and 0.72% of the country, 1.1 times Cumberland County.
• Cumberland County: 12,506 warehousing jobs, 10% of Pennsylvania and 0.66% of the country, 92% of the size of Luzerne County.
• Lehigh County: 9,774 warehousing jobs, 7.9% of Pennsylvania and 0.51% of the country, 72% of the size of Luzerne County.

Pennsylvania against the country

Read across: what Pennsylvania has, what the whole country has, the slice Pennsylvania takes, and where that puts it in the state ranking when a rank exists.

What the ratios say

Small counties in Pennsylvania are hidden by BLS disclosure rules, so read the 123,481 state figure as the total and the county lines as a floor.

• The three largest warehousing counties hold 29% of Pennsylvania's jobs in the line.
• At 106.3 jobs per establishment against 81.5 across the US, Pennsylvania's warehouses run larger than the national average by 30 percent.
• Food manufacturing employs 0.67 people for every warehousing job in Pennsylvania; across the US the ratio is 0.93.
• Pennsylvania holds 4.7% of the nation's food manufacturing jobs and 6.5% of its warehousing jobs, so food is the lighter of the two lines here.
• Pharmaceutical manufacturing adds 20,358 jobs, 5.8% of the US total, enough to make sanitisable pallets a real part of local demand.
• Motor vehicle assembly accounts for 3,556 jobs in Pennsylvania, 1.2% of the US total, with another 5,730 in parts.
• Refrigerated space works out at 1,846 cubic feet for every warehousing job, against 2,098 nationally.
• The 6 metros below account for 89% of the state's warehousing jobs, counting disclosed counties only.
• Luzerne County's 13,602 warehousing jobs are more than the whole state total of 15 other states, the largest being Delaware at 12,495.
• Oklahoma runs warehouses of nearly the same size, at 105.7 jobs per establishment against 106.3 here.
• For food manufacturing, Wisconsin is the closest match at 81,993 jobs, 545 below Pennsylvania's 82,538.
• The smallest county the BLS shows for Pennsylvania is Lehigh County with 9,774 jobs; the largest has 1.4 times as many.
• If warehousing jobs were split evenly across 50 states, each would hold 2.0% of the total; Pennsylvania holds 6.49%, which is 3.25 times an even share.
• Texas sits above Pennsylvania with 52,098 more warehousing jobs, and Florida sits below with 18,080 fewer.

Where Pennsylvania ranks

Pennsylvania and the 2 states above it hold 28% of the country's 1,901,976 warehousing jobs between them. The median state has 23,211, so Pennsylvania is 100,271 jobs above it; California, the largest, has 236,923, or 2 times as many.

Who buys pallets in Pennsylvania

Measured against the national share of employment, warehousing and storage is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Pennsylvania, at 1.6 times the national figure. Warehouses with automated storage need a consistent size for conveyors and a rack rating they can read.

• Warehousing and storage: 123,481 jobs in Pennsylvania, 6.5% of the 1,901,976 across the US, or 1.00 for every warehousing job in the state.
• Plastics product manufacturing: 34,094 jobs in Pennsylvania, 5.9% of the 575,006 across the US, or 0.28 for every warehousing job in the state.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing: 20,358 jobs in Pennsylvania, 5.8% of the 350,886 across the US, or 0.16 for every warehousing job in the state.
• Refrigerated warehousing: 4,102 jobs in Pennsylvania, 5.6% of the 73,136 across the US, or 0.03 for every warehousing job in the state.

The ladder around Pennsylvania

Sorting all 50 states by warehousing jobs puts Pennsylvania 3rd. The rows around it show how close the next states are.

Metros we list in Pennsylvania

6 metros in Pennsylvania have a page with ZIPs, counties and corridors.

Planning around the seasons

• Cold months bring brittle resin, so handle gently and avoid sharp drops.
• Warm months soften decks, so shorten stacks and keep loads in shade.
• Harvest, holiday and promotion peaks use pallets faster, so order earlier.
• Wet seasons add weight in the ribs, so allow a drying day before indoor use.
• Plan returns and exports for the weeks when dock space is free.

What to put on a request from Pennsylvania

USDA counted 228 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Pennsylvania on 1 October 2025, 7th among the states; ask the maker how a pallet behaves frozen.

• Start with the footprint: 48 x 40 in, one maker
• Then the grade: used and clean with a stated rating
• Give the receiving ZIP in Pennsylvania
• Name a quantity band, a few pallet-loads up to a truck

Other states

• Arkansas
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Maine
• Missouri
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• Texas
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming

Keep reading