Nestable and Stackable Pallets: Laredo

Laredo, by road

It is the largest land crossing from Mexico, and I-35 starts here, so trade pallets cross the river and move north. Laredo is counted here as the metropolitan area in Texas that the Census Bureau delineates, and its pallet traffic is set by that geography.

Because the crossing carries trade in both directions, a pallet that goes south loaded may come back north on a different truck, and that makes the empty leg a border question as well as a road one.

Warehousing and storage is where this area is most concentrated, at 1.7 times the national share of employment. The area reaches into Webb county.

ZIP codes with the most warehouses

The five largest ZIP codes hold 85 establishments between them. Laredo (78045) leads with 72, 84.7 percent of the five.

Reading the numbers

• Laredo (78041) has 62 fewer warehousing establishments than Laredo (78045), 10 against 72.
• Laredo (78043) has 69 fewer warehousing establishments than Laredo (78045), 3 against 72.
• ZIP 78045 in Laredo ranks number 1 of the five, with 72 warehousing establishments, 84.7 percent of their combined total and 24.00 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 78041 in Laredo ranks number 2 of the five, with 10 warehousing establishments, 11.8 percent of their combined total and 3.33 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 78043 in Laredo ranks number 3 of the five, with 3 warehousing establishments, 3.5 percent of their combined total and 1.00 times the smallest of them.
• Warehousing and storage employs 2,014 in the area, 1.00 for every warehousing job.
• Texas's warehousing and storage employment, 175,579, is 87.18 times the Laredo area's warehousing jobs.
• Texas's food manufacturing employment, 112,088, is 55.65 times the Laredo area's warehousing jobs.
• Dallas-Fort Worth, also in Texas, has 82,593 warehousing jobs, 41.01 times Laredo's.
• Houston, also in Texas, has 33,785 warehousing jobs, 16.78 times Laredo's.
• San Antonio, also in Texas, has 16,751 warehousing jobs, 8.32 times Laredo's.

Who ships pallets here

In Laredo, warehousing and storage employs 2,014. Racks decide the order of questions: a pallet that sits on beams needs a racking load that matches the span, and a floor-stacked pallet needs a static load that matches the bottom of the stack. 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 85 warehouses in its five largest ZIP codes in Laredo sent back 800 empty pallets in a week, that would be 68,000 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, Laredo ranks number 5 by warehousing jobs.

Laredo holds 1.1 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, San Antonio and Austin.

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.

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.

Stretch wrap

Elastic film wound around a loaded pallet to hold the load together.

ZIP Code Business Patterns

A Census Bureau series that counts establishments by ZIP code and industry.

Drayage

The short haul of a container between a port or rail ramp and a warehouse.

UL

Underwriters Laboratories, a safety testing body that publishes fire test standards, including one for storage pallets.

Polypropylene

Another common pallet resin, lighter and stiffer than some others, with its own behaviour in the cold.

Dynamic load

The weight a pallet holds while it is moved by a forklift, pallet jack or conveyor. It is lower than static because motion adds shock.

Euro pallet

A 1200 by 800 millimetre pallet, about 48 by 31.5 inches, widely used in Europe.