Used plastic pallets in Lehigh Valley

Lehigh Valley by county

Count the jobs the BLS can disclose in Lehigh Valley and you reach 19,122 in warehousing and storage for 2025, 5.7% of the metro's private work. The area covers 4 counties: Warren, Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton.

Lehigh Valley against Pennsylvania

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

ZIPs with the most warehouses

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 5 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 50 between them. 18031 (Breinigsville) leads with 12, 24% of the listed total.

• 18031 Breinigsville: 12 warehousing establishments, 1.0 times 18015.
• 18015 Bethlehem: 12 warehousing establishments, 100% of the count in 18031.
• 18106 Allentown: 10 warehousing establishments, 83% of the count in 18031.
• 18045 Easton: 9 warehousing establishments, 75% of the count in 18031.
• 18020 Bethlehem: 7 warehousing establishments, 58% of the count in 18031.

What the ratios say

The BLS leaves out counties where one employer would show through, so the 19,122 jobs counted for Lehigh Valley may understate the metro.

• Lehigh Valley ranks 21st of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 19,122 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 4 counties, that is 4,781 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• Lehigh County holds 51% of the metro's jobs and Northampton County 48%; the gap between them is 610 jobs.
• 18031 has 12 warehousing establishments, 1.7 times as many as 18020 (7) at the other end of the list.
• Pennsylvania has 123,481 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Lehigh Valley are 15% of the state.
• Warehousing is 5.7% of private jobs in these counties; where it is higher than average, pallets are a daily cost and sellers of surplus are common.
• The metros closest in size are Nashville (19,548, 426 above) and Scranton-Wilkes-Barre (18,912, 210 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 18031, 18015, 18106, hold 34 of the 50 establishments in the ZIP list, or 68%.
• The ZIP list spans 4 towns, led by Bethlehem (19) and Breinigsville (12).
• The ZIP list averages 10.0 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 18020 Bethlehem, has 7.
• Of the 4 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 3 for warehousing, which together account for 19,122 of the 19,122 jobs counted.
• Lehigh Valley has 1.4 times the disclosed warehousing jobs of the median metro.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 17 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 4 counties.

Where Lehigh Valley ranks

Lehigh Valley and the 20 metros above it hold 72% of the 1,116,650 warehousing jobs across the 60 metros in the data. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368.

Corridors through Lehigh Valley

No Interstate corridor in our data lists Lehigh Valley, so the county and ZIP figures carry this page.

The ladder around Lehigh Valley

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

Lehigh Valley's pallet-using trades

Against the national share of employment, warehousing and storage is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Lehigh Valley, at 4.0x. Warehouses with automated storage need a consistent size for conveyors and a rack rating they can read.

• Warehousing and storage: 19,122 jobs in the disclosed counties, 1.0% of the 1,901,976 across the US, or 1.00 for every warehousing job here.
• Beverage manufacturing: 2,486 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.8% of the 316,938 across the US, or 0.13 for every warehousing job here.
• Chemical manufacturing: 3,920 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.4% of the 892,426 across the US, or 0.20 for every warehousing job here.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing: 1,258 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.4% of the 350,886 across the US, or 0.07 for every warehousing job here.

Sorting a lot into piles

• Pile one: whole pallets with flat decks, square corners and no repairs.
• Pile two: whole pallets with a repair or a mismatched piece, kept separate and counted.
• Pile three: pallets with a crack through a load path, set aside for repair or scrap.
• Pile four: marked pallets that may belong to someone else, held until the owner is known.
• Write the pile count on a board by the stacks, and photograph it each morning.

On the receiving dock

• Count stacks before pallets, then count the pallets in two stacks to confirm the tally.
• Lay a tape across the deck and along the runners of three pallets from different stacks.
• Look for pooled marks, bar codes and moulded owner names before anything is put away.
• Sign for the count and note any shortfall on the delivery receipt in the driver's presence.
• Photograph the stacks from both ends while the trailer doors are still open.

Requesting a lot for Lehigh Valley

• Footprint: 48 x 40 in, one maker
• Grade: used and clean with a stated rating
• Dock ZIP, for example 18031 or 18015
• Quantity band

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