Sell plastic pallets in North Carolina

North Carolina in numbers

Warehousing and storage jobs, 2025

54,551 (11th of 50 states)

Warehousing establishments

590 (12th of 50); about 92 jobs each

Share of US warehousing jobs

2.87%

Food manufacturing jobs

61,441 (8th of 50)

Most concentrated pallet-using industry

pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing, 2.4x the national share of employment

Pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs

26,998

Auto parts jobs

13,690

Reading a North Carolina lot

Count the warehouses and North Carolina comes 12th; count the jobs in them and it comes 11th. It sits in the upper third of the fifty by warehousing jobs. With about 92 people a site against a national 82, a single dock here can hold a truckload at once.

North Carolina has 1.1 food manufacturing jobs for every warehousing job, against 0.9 across the fifty states. The plants are the bigger half of the picture, and they swap pallets on a schedule more than on wear. Among the other industries counted here, pharmaceutical manufacturing (26,998 jobs) is 2.0 times the size of auto parts (13,690).

Mecklenburg County holds 22.5% of North Carolina's warehousing jobs, and the top 3 listed hold 42.3%. The jobs are spread across the state, so no one county sets the route. The dossier follows one metro in North Carolina: Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia.

The October 2025 USDA table used here gives no separate figure for North Carolina, so cold-chain lots are read on their photos and what they carried.

Where North Carolina's warehousing jobs sit

What North Carolina's industries put on the dock

• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing: 26,998 jobs, 2025
• Meat and poultry processing: 35,715 jobs, 2025
• Chemical manufacturing: 47,758 jobs, 2025
• Plastics product manufacturing: 27,700 jobs, 2025

By location quotient pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing leads in North Carolina, with 2.4 times the national share of employment. The page on pharmaceutical plants shows what that industry sets down on a dock.

The metro that matters in North Carolina

Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia. Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia: 11 counties (Anson, Cabarrus, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg...). 18,437 private jobs in warehousing and storage in 2025 (0.97% of the US total; 1.5% of local private jobs), disclosed counties only. Largest warehousing counties: Mecklenburg (12,290), York (3,009), Rowan (1,800). Most concentrated: warehousing and storage at 1.1x the national share of employment. ZIPs with the most warehousing establishments (Census ZBP 2023): 28273 Charlotte (33), 28269 Charlotte (24), 29730 Rock Hill (15), 28208 Charlotte (12), 28027 Concord (10).

Where North Carolina sits among the fifty

States next to North Carolina

North Carolina has fewer warehousing jobs than 1 of these 4 and more than the rest. The largest of them, Georgia, has 1.6 times North Carolina's 54,551. A lot near a state line can be read against either side, so give the exact ZIP.

More on North Carolina from the sources

• Private employers in the US averaged 556,647 jobs across 4,689 establishments in meat and poultry processing (NAICS 3116) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Texas (44,780), Georgia (42,030), North Carolina (35,715), Arkansas (34,773), Iowa (33,386). (data.bls.gov)
• Private employers in the US averaged 350,886 jobs across 7,786 establishments in pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing (NAICS 3254) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: California (42,575), New Jersey (30,062), North Carolina (26,998), New York (25,087), Illinois (24,257). (data.bls.gov)

Other pallet-using industries counted in North Carolina

Sending a lot from North Carolina

Count the stacks, give the ZIP where they stand, and use the sorter or the form below. If the dock holds a clean closed-loop stock, say so in the message.

Who asks, and what they need

Automotive plants and suppliers

48 x 45 pallets that match bulk containers; closed-loop reuse; heavy dynamic and static loads.

Retailers that collect pooled or one-way pallets

Stacks of marked and unmarked pallets left by suppliers; need to know which can be sold and which belong to a pool.

Chemical and drum shippers

48 x 48 and 45 x 45 pallets for drums and bags; chemical resistance.

What the sources say

• Private employers in the US averaged 556,647 jobs across 4,689 establishments in meat and poultry processing (NAICS 3116) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Texas (44,780), Georgia (42,030), North Carolina (35,715), Arkansas (34,773), Iowa (33,386). (data.bls.gov)
• NFPA requires wood and plastic pallets to be stored outdoors or in a detached structure unless sprinklers protect them. (en.wikipedia.org)
• The International Fire Code permits pallets listed and labeled under FM 4996 or UL 2335 to be treated as wood pallets for sprinkler design. (iccsafe.org)
• The 800 x 1200 mm Euro footprint is the second most popular plastic pallet size worldwide. (blog.containerexchanger.com)
• 43 x 43 in pallets are designed for bulk bags; 45 x 45 in is the CP9 chemical standard. (nelsoncompany.com)
• In 2011 a Quebec court ruled that CHEP's identified blue pallets belong to CHEP and cannot be sold. (palletenterprise.com)
• PHS Plastic lists 19 nestable 48 x 40 and other-footprint models with dynamic ratings from 1,102 to 3,500 lb and static ratings from 2,204 to 15,000 lb, so 'nestable' spans light export pallets to heavy-duty stackers. (phsinc.com)
• Private employers in the US averaged 350,886 jobs across 7,786 establishments in pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing (NAICS 3254) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: California (42,575), New Jersey (30,062), North Carolina (26,998), New York (25,087), Illinois (24,257). (data.bls.gov)
• Private employers in the US averaged 892,426 jobs across 25,801 establishments in chemical manufacturing (NAICS 325) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Texas (90,310), California (75,499), Ohio (49,328), Illinois (48,745), New Jersey (47,966). (data.bls.gov)
• Private employers in the US averaged 521,212 jobs across 6,414 establishments in motor vehicle parts manufacturing (NAICS 3363) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Michigan (111,465), Ohio (62,025), Indiana (52,146), Tennessee (38,791), Kentucky (32,261). (data.bls.gov)
• Warehousing and storage (NAICS 493) was 1.4% of the 133,160,274 private-sector jobs QCEW counted in the US in 2025. (data.bls.gov)
• Port of Los Angeles handled 9,447,731 TEUs from January through November 2025, 1 percent more than the same months of 2024; its executive director called 2025 firmly a top-three year in the port's history. (portoflosangeles.org)
• The Northwest Seaport Alliance (Seattle and Tacoma) handled 3,156,598 TEUs of international and domestic containers in 2025, down 5.5 percent from 2024, with full imports down 10.3 percent and full exports down 4.9 percent. (nwseaportalliance.com)
• FDA's Food Traceability Rule (FSMA section 204) requires businesses that make, process, pack or hold foods on the Food Traceability List to keep Key Data Elements for Critical Tracking Events and share them within 24 hours of a request; FDA says Congress directed it not to enforce the rule before July 20, 2028. (fda.gov)
• EPA's 2018 municipal solid waste data: plastics generation was 35.68 million tons, of which 3.09 million tons (8.7 percent) were recycled and 26.97 million tons landfilled; natural HDPE bottles were recycled at 29.3 percent. The page gives no pallet-specific or polypropylene figure. (epa.gov)
• Counties with the most private pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing jobs (NAICS 3254) in 2025, BLS QCEW, counties with disclosed data only: Lake County, Illinois (16,883), Marion County, Indiana (16,292), Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (11,878), Suffolk County, New York (10,760), Los Angeles County, California (8,300), San Diego County, California (8,028). (data.bls.gov)

• BLS QCEW: warehousing and storage, 2025
• USDA: Cold Storage, refrigerated warehouse capacity

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