Wholesale plastic pallets shipped to Washington

Measured against the national total for each industry, Washington is strongest in fruit and vegetable preserving, with 6.3% of the US jobs, and weakest in grocery and related product wholesale, with 2.9%. The state holds 1.93% of US warehousing jobs, so a share above that line means the industry is bigger here than the warehousing base alone suggests.

Pierce holds 28.1% of the state's warehousing jobs, and the 3 counties shown together hold 68.3%. Counties with undisclosed data are left out, so these are floors, not complete counts.

The market dossier lists 2 metro markets in Washington. ZIPs are examples of addresses inside each, drawn from Census data.

Washington stands 1,590 jobs behind Kentucky and 3,637 ahead of Wisconsin. The median state has 23,211 warehousing jobs, so Washington sits 1.6 times above that line.

• The average Washington warehousing site employs 78 people against 81 nationally, so a typical site here is 95 percent the size of the national one.
• Food manufacturing employs 1.08 people for every warehousing job in Washington; across the whole country the figure is 0.93.
• Motor vehicle assembly and parts together account for 1,900 jobs in Washington, 0.2% of the 809,845 nationwide.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing adds 4,224 jobs, 1.2% of the national 350,886, which makes it 22nd of the 46 states that report.
• Cold storage runs 8,204 thousand cubic feet of gross refrigerated capacity for every thousand warehousing jobs here, against 2,098 thousand for the country as a whole.
• California has the most warehousing jobs of any state, 236,923, and Washington has 15.5% of that.
• By number of warehousing establishments Washington is 18th of fifty, and by average site size it is 25th, so it has more sites than its job count alone would suggest.
• In food manufacturing Washington ranks 19th with 39,687 jobs, 2.2% of the US total of 1,775,008.
• The 3 counties shown hold 25,051 of the state's 36,691 warehousing jobs, so 11,640 sit in other counties or in counties whose data is not disclosed.

Our sources show no figure for Washington in motor vehicle assembly. Those gaps are in the data, which hides or omits small cells to protect privacy; they are not a claim that the industry is absent, and a missing row above means the same.

Loads for Washington often share a corridor with the neighbours below. The ratio column divides the neighbour's warehousing jobs by Washington's 36,691, so a ratio above 1 means a larger warehousing base across the line.

Lane pages for the neighbours: Idaho and Oregon.

The table sets Washington beside each state that borders it on the same five measures: establishments, jobs per site, food manufacturing jobs for each warehousing job, share of the US warehousing total, and sites for every thousand warehousing jobs. All of it is arithmetic on the BLS counts named in the sources.

• To reach the median state's 23,211 warehousing jobs, Washington would have to lose 13,480; to reach its 306 median sites it would have to lose 167.
• Its 1.93% of US warehousing jobs compares with 2.24% of US food manufacturing jobs, a ratio of 1.16: food plants weigh more here than warehouses do.
• If each of the 473 sites took one standard 53 ft trailer of pallets a month, the state would see 5,676 trailers a year; that is an illustration of scale, not a forecast of demand.
• ZIP codes in Washington fall in 980 to 986 and 988 to 994, so the first three digits of a ship-to are enough to place a dock inside the state.
• Fruit and vegetable preserving is the largest listed industry on this page at 10,988 jobs, 0.30 for every warehousing job and 23 for every warehousing site.
• Dividing the 39,687 food manufacturing jobs by the 473 warehousing sites gives 83.9; across the country the same division gives 76.0.
• The state's 1.93% of US warehousing jobs equals one job in every 52 nationwide.

A thought experiment with the same data: if all 473 Washington sites were the size of the average US site, at 81.5 jobs, the state would have 38,537 warehousing jobs, which is 1,846 more than the 36,691 it has. Its sites are smaller than the national average.

• Idaho has 34,246 fewer warehousing jobs, 327 fewer sites and 18,324 fewer food manufacturing jobs than Washington, so a Idaho dock averages 16.7 jobs per site against 77.6 here, and 8.74 food jobs for each warehousing job against 1.08.
• Oregon has 19,941 fewer warehousing jobs, 206 fewer sites and 11,484 fewer food manufacturing jobs than Washington, so a Oregon dock averages 62.7 jobs per site against 77.6 here, and 1.68 food jobs for each warehousing job against 1.08.

• Fruit and vegetable preserving employs 10,988 in Washington, 6.3% of the 173,844 nationwide; for every warehousing job the state has 0.30 of these jobs.
• Grocery and related product wholesale employs 23,876 in Washington, 2.9% of the 829,364 nationwide; for every warehousing job the state has 0.65 of these jobs.

• Pierce is 1st of the counties shown with 10,323 warehousing jobs, which is 133.1 times the average Washington site headcount of 78 and 0.54% of all US warehousing jobs.
• King is 2nd of the counties shown with 9,341 warehousing jobs, which is 120.4 times the average Washington site headcount of 78 and 0.49% of all US warehousing jobs.
• Spokane is 3rd of the counties shown with 5,387 warehousing jobs, which is 69.4 times the average Washington site headcount of 78 and 0.28% of all US warehousing jobs.

• The dock address and ZIP; ZIPs in Washington begin with 980 to 986 and 988 to 994.
• Whether the dock has a loading dock or needs a liftgate trailer.
• Receiving hours and whether delivery needs an appointment.
• The footprint and the number of pallets, or the number of trailers.
• The three ratings the load needs, or a description of the load.
• Resin and colourant papers wanted, if the pallets touch food or pharma product.
• The month you want them, and whether a standing supply follows.