Used plastic pallets in Austin

Where the warehouses are in Austin

Count the jobs the BLS can disclose in Austin-Round Rock and you reach 5,657 in warehousing and storage for 2025, 0.5% of the metro's private work. The area covers 5 counties: Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, Williamson.

Austin against Texas

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

Austin ZIPs to name on a request

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 5 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 46 between them. 78744 (Austin) leads with 15, 33% of the listed total.

• 78744 Austin: 15 warehousing establishments, 1.3 times 78660.
• 78660 Pflugerville: 12 warehousing establishments, 80% of the count in 78744.
• 78758 Austin: 7 warehousing establishments, 47% of the count in 78744.
• 78753 Austin: 6 warehousing establishments, 40% of the count in 78744.
• 78728 Austin: 6 warehousing establishments, 40% of the count in 78744.

What the ratios say

County totals for Austin-Round Rock are floors, since the BLS hides counties with too few employers to publish; the 5,657 jobs are the disclosed part.

• Austin ranks 44th of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 5,657 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 5 counties, that is 1,131 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• Travis County holds 92% of the metro's jobs and Williamson County 8.4%; the gap between them is 4,701 jobs.
• 78744 has 15 warehousing establishments, 2.5 times as many as 78728 (6) at the other end of the list.
• Texas has 175,579 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Austin are 3.2% 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.
• One Interstate in the data serves the metro, and it carries 147,019 warehousing jobs along the route.
• The metros closest in size are Baltimore (6,377, 720 above) and Omaha (5,157, 500 below).
• The top three ZIPs, 78744, 78660, 78758, hold 34 of the 46 establishments in the ZIP list, or 74%.
• The ZIP list spans 2 towns, led by Austin (34) and Pflugerville (12).
• The ZIP list averages 9.2 warehousing establishments per ZIP across 5 ZIPs, and the quietest, 78728 Austin, has 6.
• Of the 5 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 2 for warehousing, which together account for 5,657 of the 5,657 jobs counted.
• Reaching the median metro would take 2.4 times the disclosed warehousing jobs Austin has now.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 199 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 5 counties.

Where Austin ranks

Austin and the 43 metros above it hold 96% of the 1,116,650 warehousing jobs across the 60 metros in the data. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368.

Highways around Austin

Interstate 35 is the Interstate in our data that serves Austin.

Neighbouring metros in the data

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

The ladder around Austin

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

Who buys pallets around Austin

Against the national share of employment, warehousing and storage is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Austin-Round Rock, at 0.4x. Warehouses with automated storage need a consistent size for conveyors and a rack rating they can read.

• Warehousing and storage: 5,657 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.3% of the 1,901,976 across the US, or 1.00 for every warehousing job here.
• Food manufacturing: 3,934 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.2% of the 1,775,008 across the US, or 0.70 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.

Photographs worth taking

• One wide shot of each stack with a tape or a person for scale.
• The four corners of a sample pallet, close enough to show gouges.
• The underside, including the runners and the bottom of each fork pocket.
• Any plate, label, moulded number or mark, shot square on and in raking light.
• Repairs and cracks, with a coin or a ruler beside them to show size.

Requesting a lot for Austin

• Footprint: 48 x 40 in, one maker
• Grade: used and clean with a stated rating
• Dock ZIP, for example 78744 or 78660
• Quantity band

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