Tampa Logistics: Warehousing, Trucking and Air Cargo Jobs

Hillsborough County counted 31,523 private transportation and warehousing jobs at 1,426 establishments in 2025, paying an average of $62,696, and only 675 of them were in water transportation or its support activities.

Those totals are 2025 annual averages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll census for Hillsborough County, area 12057 (BLS QCEW). The county figure covers Tampa and the rest of Hillsborough County together. Logistics in this file pays below the county norm: all private Hillsborough employers averaged $78,261 across 715,520 jobs (BLS QCEW, all private industries).

Seen across the whole metro, the trend is flat. BLS counts 277.4 thousand trade, transportation and utilities jobs in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro for August 2026, a preliminary figure 0.3 percent below a year earlier, and that sector posted a negative 12-month change in every month from April to August 2026 on the BLS Economy at a Glance page, and the BLS trade, transportation and utilities series for the metro labels the 277.4 figure as August 2026, preliminary. That metro total covers the whole Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area, so it is a regional signal, not a Tampa count.

The water side is small in this file: water transportation (483) held 191 private Hillsborough jobs and support activities for water transportation (4883) held 484 in 2025 (BLS QCEW), and the QCEW industry titles place port and harbor operations and marine cargo handling under 4883. The port itself is covered in the Port of Tampa guide. This page follows freight after it leaves the water or before it reaches a plane: the warehouses, the truck lines, the courier hubs and the cargo ramps at Tampa International Airport.

Warehousing is the largest logistics line in Hillsborough County, with 12,216 jobs at 99 establishments in 2025, up 272 jobs or 2.3 percent over the year, at an average pay of $56,129.

Nearly all of that work is general warehousing and storage (NAICS 49311): 70 Hillsborough establishments with 11,661 jobs and $55,751 average pay, up 205 jobs (BLS QCEW). Industry names here follow the official QCEW industry titles, which separate general warehousing from refrigerated and farm product storage.

The average Hillsborough warehouse is large. With 12,216 jobs spread over 99 establishments, the average establishment has about 123 jobs, far more than the roughly 8.5 per establishment in county trucking, so Hillsborough warehousing runs through relatively few large establishments (figures computed from BLS QCEW).

Wholesale trade in Hillsborough pays much more than warehousing. Merchant wholesalers of nondurable goods, a group whose official subdivisions include grocery, beverage, paper and chemical wholesalers, had 840 Hillsborough establishments and 14,932 jobs in 2025, up 854 or 6.1 percent, at $94,388 average pay (BLS QCEW). Durable goods wholesalers had 1,573 establishments and 20,148 jobs at $105,949 (BLS QCEW).

Shrinking overall: Hillsborough County truck transportation fell to 6,279 jobs in 2025, down 248 or 3.8 percent, as general freight trucking lost 391 jobs while specialized freight trucking added 142.

Every row comes from the 2025 annual Hillsborough County file (BLS QCEW, county 12057). General freight trucking shed 9.2 percent of its Hillsborough jobs in one year, while specialized freight trucking, which the QCEW industry titles split into used household and office goods moving and specialized freight (except used goods) trucking, local and long-distance, grew 6.2 percent (BLS QCEW).

Freight transportation arrangement pays best among the Hillsborough land rows. The 122 Hillsborough establishments in freight transportation arrangement averaged $92,596 in 2025, well above the $68,907 average in trucking itself (BLS QCEW). Support activities for road transportation, a small Hillsborough line, grew 12.4 percent to 635 jobs.

Tampa International Airport lists six all-cargo carriers, ABX Airways, Air Transport International, Inc., Atlas Air, Federal Express Corporation, Sun Country and United Parcel Service (UPS), and says passenger airlines also carry cargo on a scheduled and non-scheduled basis.

The airport lists ten passenger carriers for cargo: Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Cayman Airways, Delta Air Lines, Discover Airlines, Edelweiss Air, jetBlue, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines (Tampa International Airport, Air Cargo). It pitches its West Coast location as access to eight counties, 4.2 million people and the nation's 19th largest GDP. The airport lists its address as 4100 George J. Bean Pkwy, Tampa, FL 33607, and its site carries a Hillsborough County Aviation Authority copyright (Tampa International Airport).

A practical gap: the Tampa airport cargo page names carriers but publishes no tonnage, so the page cannot size air freight at TPA (TPA Air Cargo).

Payroll data fill in part of the picture. Private air transportation in Hillsborough County had 31 establishments and 2,847 jobs in 2025 at $82,051 average pay, down 113 jobs (BLS QCEW). On the public side, QCEW counts one local government establishment in support activities for air transportation with 700 jobs and $101,383 average pay, up 26, and one federal establishment in the same code with 171 jobs (BLS QCEW). QCEW does not name the employers behind either row.

Hillsborough County had 3,043 courier and express delivery jobs at 84 establishments in 2025, down 132 or 4.2 percent, plus 624 jobs at 46 local messenger and local delivery firms.

Couriers and express delivery services averaged $51,596 in Hillsborough County pay in 2025; local messengers and local delivery averaged $40,307 and lost 18 jobs (BLS QCEW). Taken together, the couriers and messengers subsector held 3,668 jobs at 130 establishments (BLS QCEW).

One caution applies to every Tampa logistics number on this page. BLS classifies each establishment by industry on the basis of its primary economic activity (BLS Handbook of Methods, QCEW concepts), so the Hillsborough rows count industries, not every freight task done inside other businesses.

The City of Tampa's TPA-WRX career list tags two employers as Distribution, Logistics, & Freight, Chadwell Supply and Tampa Bay Steel Corporation, and Port Tampa Bay offers 265 acres of non-waterfront industrial real estate with CSX Rail at hand.

The TPA-WRX Top Companies page links each company to its job openings and was last updated 08/04/2025, more than a year before this check, so it is a starting point for Tampa job seekers rather than a current census of logistics firms (City of Tampa TPA-WRX). Neither QCEW nor the city ranks Tampa logistics employers by size.

For warehouse and distribution tenants, Port Tampa Bay describes its 265 acres of non-waterfront industrial real estate as having CSX Rail and the interstate highway system at hand, and pitches the land to maritime related industries that still need easy access to the action (Port Tampa Bay, About The Port). Readers looking for cargo tonnage, cruise traffic or the harbor channel will find them in the Port of Tampa guide.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading the BLS QCEW 2025 Hillsborough County file, the Tampa International Airport air cargo page, the City of Tampa TPA-WRX list, the Port Tampa Bay About page, the BLS Handbook of Methods and the BLS metro summary for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater.