Nestable and Stackable Pallets: New Jersey

New Jersey, by road

The Turnpike and the Port of New York and New Jersey make it the densest warehouse state per mile of road. For a plastic pallet buyer in New Jersey, the geography sets the route and the route sets the empty return: I-95, I-78, I-80 and I-287 carry most of what leaves, and every empty pallet that comes back has to ride the same road.

The counties with the most warehousing jobs are Middlesex (26,309), Burlington (10,713) and Gloucester (9,948), which is 61.7 percent of the state's 76,152. It shares a land border with New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Warehousing in numbers

Refrigerated space matters because a freezer is hard on plastic; the cold guide says what to ask for. New Jersey held 137 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse capacity on October 1, 2025.

Reading the numbers

• Middlesex County has 26,309 warehousing jobs, 34.5 percent of New Jersey's 76,152, the most in the state.
• Burlington County has 10,713 warehousing jobs, 14.1 percent of New Jersey's 76,152, 15,596 fewer than Middlesex County.
• Gloucester County has 9,948 warehousing jobs, 13.1 percent of New Jersey's 76,152, 16,361 fewer than Middlesex County.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing employs 30,062 people in New Jersey, 0.39 for every warehousing job.
• Refrigerated warehousing employs 5,388 people in New Jersey, 0.07 for every warehousing job.
• Chemical manufacturing employs 47,966 people in New Jersey, 0.63 for every warehousing job.
• Grocery and related product wholesale employs 38,127 people in New Jersey, 0.50 for every warehousing job.
• Warehousing and storage employs 76,152 people in New Jersey, 1.00 for every warehousing job.
• New Jersey holds 4 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 25, spread over 911 establishments averaging 84 jobs each.
• Northern New Jersey accounts for 39,367 warehousing jobs, 51.7 percent of New Jersey's.
• New York has 55,371 warehousing jobs, 0.73 times the 76,152 in New Jersey.
• Pennsylvania has 123,481 warehousing jobs, 1.62 times the 76,152 in New Jersey.
• Delaware has 12,495 warehousing jobs, 0.16 times the 76,152 in New Jersey.

Who ships pallets here

In New Jersey, pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing employs 30,062. Pharma plants care about clean surfaces and a paper trail. A used 48 x 40 model one maker lists is described as pharma and food safe but not approved for direct food contact, which is the kind of careful wording to expect. It tends to lean on clean, washable stackable or nestable with a paperwork trail, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about resin and colourant documents and the maker's cleaning guidance.

Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing is the trade where New Jersey is most concentrated, at 3.1 times the national share of employment. A buyer in that trade will tend to ask the questions in the last column first.

The empty return

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 911 warehouse establishments in New Jersey sent back 500 empty pallets in a week, that would be 455,500 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

Next door

Metros in New Jersey with their own page: Northern New Jersey.

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.

Dock door

The opening where a trailer backs to a building so pallets can be loaded and unloaded.

FM Approvals

A testing and certification body whose classifications insurers and sprinkler designers read.

2-way entry

A pallet that can be lifted from only two opposite sides.

UL

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

Pallet jack

A hand or powered truck with two forks, used to move a pallet short distances.

Cube utilisation

How well loaded freight fills the volume of a trailer or container. Taller or wider-than-floor pallets waste cube.

Racking load

The weight a pallet holds when it rests on two rack beams with an open gap between them. It is usually the lowest rating and only exists for pallets built for racks.

CP9

A chemical industry pallet standard, 1140 by 1140 millimetres, about 45 by 45 inches.