Used plastic pallets in Washington

Washington in numbers

A pallet moves wherever a warehouse does, and Washington has 473 of them by the BLS establishment count, with 36,691 jobs between them and 77.6 per site on average.

• Pierce County: 10,323 warehousing jobs, 28% of Washington and 0.54% of the country, 1.1 times King County.
• King County: 9,341 warehousing jobs, 25% of Washington and 0.49% of the country, 90% of the size of Pierce County.
• Spokane County: 5,387 warehousing jobs, 15% of Washington and 0.28% of the country, 52% of the size of Pierce County.

Washington against the country

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

What the ratios say

Small counties in Washington are hidden by BLS disclosure rules, so read the 36,691 state figure as the total and the county lines as a floor.

• The three largest warehousing counties hold 68% of Washington's jobs in the line.
• At 77.6 jobs per establishment against 81.5 across the US, Washington's warehouses run smaller than the national average by 5 percent.
• Food manufacturing employs 1.08 people for every warehousing job in Washington; across the US the ratio is 0.93.
• Washington holds 2.2% of the nation's food manufacturing jobs and 1.9% of its warehousing jobs, so food is the heavier of the two lines here.
• Pharmaceutical manufacturing adds 4,224 jobs, 1.2% of the US total.
• Refrigerated space works out at 8,204 cubic feet for every warehousing job, against 2,098 nationally.
• The 2 metros below account for 66% of the state's warehousing jobs, counting disclosed counties only.
• Pierce County's 10,323 warehousing jobs are more than the whole state total of 14 other states, the largest being Nebraska at 8,246.
• South Dakota runs warehouses of nearly the same size, at 77.8 jobs per establishment against 77.6 here.
• For food manufacturing, Florida is the closest match at 39,390 jobs, 297 below Washington's 39,687.
• The smallest county the BLS shows for Washington is Spokane County with 5,387 jobs; the largest has 1.9 times as many.
• If warehousing jobs were split evenly across 50 states, each would hold 2.0% of the total; Washington holds 1.93%, which is 0.96 times an even share.
• Kentucky sits above Washington with 1,590 more warehousing jobs, and Wisconsin sits below with 3,637 fewer.

Where Washington ranks

Washington and the 17 states above it hold 77% of the country's 1,901,976 warehousing jobs between them. The median state has 23,211, so Washington is 13,481 jobs above it; California, the largest, has 236,923, or 6 times as many.

Who buys pallets in Washington

Measured against the national share of employment, fruit and vegetable preserving is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Washington, at 2.8 times the national figure. Food plants ask for clean, odour-free, washable decks. Food-contact papers come from the maker, not from the grade.

• Fruit and vegetable preserving: 10,988 jobs in Washington, 6.3% of the 173,844 across the US, or 0.30 for every warehousing job in the state.
• Grocery and related product wholesale: 23,876 jobs in Washington, 2.9% of the 829,364 across the US, or 0.65 for every warehousing job in the state.

The ladder around Washington

Sorting all 50 states by warehousing jobs puts Washington 18th. The rows around it show how close the next states are.

Metros we list in Washington

2 metros in Washington have a page with ZIPs, counties and corridors.

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.

What to put on a request from Washington

USDA counted 301 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Washington on 1 October 2025, 3rd among the states; ask the maker how a pallet behaves frozen.

• Start with the footprint: 48 x 40 in or 56 x 44 in
• Then the grade: like new or used and clean
• Give the receiving ZIP in Washington
• Name a quantity band, a few pallet-loads up to a truck

Other states

• Delaware
• Louisiana
• Montana
• Nebraska
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York
• North Dakota
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• West Virginia

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