Used plastic pallets in Knoxville

Where the warehouses are in Knoxville

Knoxville spans 9 counties (Anderson, Blount, Campbell, Grainger, Knox, Loudon...). In the counties where the Bureau of Labor Statistics can publish, private employers had 1,751 warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, 0.5% of local private jobs.

Knoxville against Tennessee

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

Knoxville ZIPs to name on a request

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 5 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 25 between them. 37921 (Knoxville) leads with 8, 32% of the listed total.

• 37921 Knoxville: 8 warehousing establishments, 1.3 times 37917.
• 37917 Knoxville: 6 warehousing establishments, 75% of the count in 37921.
• 37922 Knoxville: 4 warehousing establishments, 50% of the count in 37921.
• 37801 Maryville: 4 warehousing establishments, 50% of the count in 37921.
• 37914 Knoxville: 3 warehousing establishments, 38% of the count in 37921.

What the ratios say

County totals for Knoxville are floors, since the BLS hides counties with too few employers to publish; the 1,751 jobs are the disclosed part.

• Knoxville ranks 56th of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 1,751 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 9 counties, that is 195 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• Knox County holds 83% of the metro's jobs and Loudon County 15%; the gap between them is 1,197 jobs.
• 37921 has 8 warehousing establishments, 2.7 times as many as 37914 (3) at the other end of the list.
• Tennessee has 53,427 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Knoxville are 3.3% of the state.
• Warehousing is 0.5% of private jobs in these counties; where it is higher than average, pallets are a daily cost and sellers of surplus are common.
• 3 Interstates in the data serve the metro, and together they carry 233,256 warehousing jobs along the route.
• The metros closest in size are Hagerstown (1,842, 91 above) and Yakima (1,309, 442 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 37921, 37917, 37922, hold 18 of the 25 establishments in the ZIP list, or 72%.
• The ZIP list spans 2 towns, led by Knoxville (21) and Maryville (4).
• The ZIP list averages 5.0 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 37914 Knoxville, has 3.
• Of the 9 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 3 for warehousing, which together account for 1,751 of the 1,751 jobs counted.
• Reaching the median metro would take 7.8 times the disclosed warehousing jobs Knoxville has now.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 199 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 9 counties.

Where Knoxville ranks

Knoxville is one of the 5 smallest of the 60 metros by disclosed warehousing jobs. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368, which is 68 times as many.

Highways around Knoxville

Interstate 81 and Interstate 75 and Interstate 40 are the Interstates in our data that serve Knoxville.

Other metros nearby

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

The ladder around Knoxville

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

Who buys pallets around Knoxville

Against the national share of employment, motor vehicle parts manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Knoxville, at 2.1x. Automotive plants reuse pallets in a loop and load them heavily, so ask for static and dynamic ratings and for one maker.

• Motor vehicle parts manufacturing: 2,979 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.6% of the 521,212 across the US, or 1.70 for every warehousing job here.
• Food manufacturing: 2,813 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.2% of the 1,775,008 across the US, or 1.61 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 Knoxville lot

• Footprint: 48 x 45 in to match heavy-duty bulk containers
• Grade: a uniform closed-loop lot
• Dock ZIP, for example 37921 or 37917
• Quantity band

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