Nestable and Stackable Pallets: Austin

Austin, by road

Geography first: it sits on I-35 between San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth, with warehouses stretching toward Round Rock. That is the setting for a pallet buyer in the Austin area of Texas.

The warehouses along this stretch of I-35 serve both ends of the Texas triangle, and the empty pallets that return along it share the road with commuters.

Warehousing and storage is where this area is most concentrated, at 0.4 times the national share of employment. The area reaches into Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson counties.

Counties

ZIP codes with the most warehouses

The five largest ZIP codes hold 46 establishments between them. Austin (78744) leads with 15, 32.6 percent of the five.

Reading the numbers

• Travis County has 5,179 warehousing jobs, 91.6 percent of the 5,657 in the Austin area.
• Williamson County has 478 warehousing jobs, 8.4 percent of the 5,657 in the Austin area, 4,701 fewer than Travis.
• Pflugerville (78660) has 3 fewer warehousing establishments than Austin (78744), 12 against 15.
• Austin (78758) has 8 fewer warehousing establishments than Austin (78744), 7 against 15.
• Austin (78753) has 9 fewer warehousing establishments than Austin (78744), 6 against 15.
• Austin (78728) has 9 fewer warehousing establishments than Austin (78744), 6 against 15.
• Travis County's 5,179 is 2.9 percent of all 175,579 warehousing jobs in Texas.
• Williamson County's 478 is 0.3 percent of all 175,579 warehousing jobs in Texas.
• ZIP 78744 in Austin ranks number 1 of the five, with 15 warehousing establishments, 32.6 percent of their combined total and 2.50 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 78660 in Pflugerville ranks number 2 of the five, with 12 warehousing establishments, 26.1 percent of their combined total and 2.00 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 78758 in Austin ranks number 3 of the five, with 7 warehousing establishments, 15.2 percent of their combined total and 1.17 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 78753 in Austin ranks number 4 of the five, with 6 warehousing establishments, 13.0 percent of their combined total and 1.00 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 78728 in Austin ranks number 5 of the five, with 6 warehousing establishments, 13.0 percent of their combined total and 1.00 times the smallest of them.
• Warehousing and storage employs 5,657 in the area (partial), 1.00 for every warehousing job.
• Food manufacturing employs 3,934 in the area, 0.70 for every warehousing job.
• Texas's warehousing and storage employment, 175,579, is 31.04 times the Austin area's warehousing jobs.
• Texas's food manufacturing employment, 112,088, is 19.81 times the Austin area's warehousing jobs.
• Dallas-Fort Worth, also in Texas, has 82,593 warehousing jobs, 14.60 times Austin's.
• Houston, also in Texas, has 33,785 warehousing jobs, 5.97 times Austin's.
• Laredo, also in Texas, has 2,014 warehousing jobs, 0.36 times Austin's.

Who ships pallets here

In Austin-Round Rock, warehousing and storage employs 5,657 (a partial count). Most of the demand is for general pallets in the common footprint, with the choice split between rack service and block stacking. It tends to lean on rackable where the pallet lives on beams, stackable for block stacking, nestable for the empties that go back, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about the racking load, and the beam span it was rated on.

The empty return

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 46 warehouses in its five largest ZIP codes in Austin sent back 500 empty pallets in a week, that would be 23,000 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

In its state

Among the 5 metros of Texas that have a page here, Austin ranks number 4 by warehousing jobs.

Austin holds 3.2 percent of Texas's 175,579 private warehousing jobs. See the Texas page for the whole state.

Other metros in Texas with their own page: Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Laredo and San Antonio.

Interstates serving the area: I-35.

Words on this page

QCEW

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a Bureau of Labor Statistics count of jobs and establishments taken from unemployment insurance records.

Interstate corridor

A freight route named for its highway, together with the metros along it.

RFID tag

A small radio tag moulded into or attached to a pallet so readers can track it through a plant or a loop.

Recycled content

The share of a pallet moulded from reground plastic. Makers print it as a range, often by colour.

Metropolitan area

A group of counties around an urban core, as the Census Bureau delineates it. Metro pages here follow those lines.

Commodity class

A fire-protection category for stored goods and their pallets, used to design sprinkler systems.

Location quotient

A place's share of employment in a trade divided by the national share. Above 1 means the trade is more concentrated there than average.

Last mile

The final leg of a delivery, from a local depot to the customer.

Reefer

A refrigerated trailer or container.