What is a Packer?
The natural habitat of a Packer is the warehouse. Fulfilling customer orders in a timely manner, packers pull and pack products, operate equipment such as forklifts, dolly loaders, or pallet wrappers.
Generally assigned to a specific area of the warehouse, they search for the required item in their neck of the woods. They confirm the products meet quality standards before packaging them for shipment. They clean, load, and label containers and arrange them on vessels or vehicles.
It is the packers' responsibility to keep the warehouse organized, to maintain a clean and secure working area that is always up to speed with safety regulations, and to report any mechanical problems they note.
The ideal packer displays physical strength and stamina as well as an affinity for detailed observation and an organized and disciplined mind.
What Does a Packer Do
Hand laborers and material movers manually move freight, stock, or other materials. Others feed or remove material to or from machines, clean vehicles, pick up unwanted household goods, and pack materials for moving.
How To Become a Packer
Formal education is not usually required to become a hand laborer or material mover. Employers typically require only that applicants be physically able to perform the work.
Packer Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a packer can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as machine operator, progress to a title such as technician and then eventually end up with the title account manager.
Average Salary for a Packer
What Am I Worth?
Roles and Types of Packer
The role of a packer includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general packer responsibilities:
- Stack and pile finished goods into containers prepare goods for shipment pack them following a specific set of instructions clean
- This position reports to the team leader. This position receives general supervision
- Perform duties such as lifting, packaging, taping, labeling operations
There are several types of packer, including:
Picker And Packer
Role:
A packer works in a warehouse or distribution center, retrieving and organizing products to fulfill daily retail orders. They manage the inventory of the warehouse, package and label goods in preparation for shipping.
An appropriate rotation of products in a warehouse is essential, and packers see to it that this is maintained. They perform quality checks regularly, as well and report any problems they might come across. A clean warehouse is a safe warehouse, and packers are expected to live by this motto.
They use specific equipment to handle large products and to manage the large spaces of a warehouse. Forklifts, pallet wrappers, and dolly loaders are at their disposal, which they need to be able to operate safely and report any mechanical issues if they occur.
- Average Salary: $30,841
- Degree: High School Diploma
Line Up Worker
Role:
As a lineup worker, your responsibility varies as to the company, industry, or organization you work for. Your duty mostly revolves around manual labor like carrying heavy shipments in and out, operating diverse kinds of devices of different sizes. Your duties may also involve working at high platforms. Consequently, you might have to do a lot of climbing up and down. You are to monitor the inventory of items as well as maintain a very organized and neat workspace.
You do not necessarily need to have a bachelor's degree to apply for a job as a lineup worker. A high school diploma is enough since you possess the skills that this job demands. Averagely, a lineup worker earns $22,813 annually.
- Average Salary: $27,868
- Degree: High School Diploma
Bagger
Role:
Are you an energetic self-starter willing to serve customers politely? If so, becoming a grocery bagger might be the perfect start to your professional career. Working as a bagger is an ideal job for teens in many ways. The job offers an opportunity to learn about customer service firsthand, with minimal skill and education requirements. It's a multifaceted, customer-oriented job, where you'll use your physical strength and bagging techniques to ensure smooth operations of the grocery store.
As a bagger, you'll perform bagging duties and may greet customers, help them find products, collect shopping carts, or carry bags to customers' cars. Working in a grocery store or large department store, you may also assist store staff with other tasks like stocking shelves. Helping customers, bagging groceries, loading or unloading shopping carts,you'll spend most your day on your feet so you must be physically fit.
There are no education requirements to become a bagger and ou may be able to get this job without a high school diploma. While you'll receive on-the-job training, previous experience working in a retail setting as a bagger or greeter may give you an advantage over other candidates. To be successful, you must be friendly and courteous and have an eye for detail when deciding which items will fit in a bag without damaging or ripping it. Grocery baggers, earn a median annual wage of $33,000 and with advanced customer service skills and experience, you may be able to move on to become a cashier or clerk.
- Average Salary: $34,119
- Degree: High School Diploma
States With The Most Packer Jobs
Mouse over a state to see the number of active packer jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where packers earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Number Of Packer Jobs By State
Top Skills For a Packer
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 19.6% of packers listed pallets on their resume, but soft skills such as customer-service skills and hand-eye coordination are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Packer Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Packer templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Packer resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Packer diversity
Packer Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among packers, 58.7% of them are women, while 41.3% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among packers is White, which makes up 54.7% of all packers.
- The most common foreign language among packers is Spanish at 84.8%.
Online Courses For Packer That You May Like
1. Customer Service, Customer Support, And Customer Experience
Customer service, customer support, and customer experience training. Loyal clients through world-class customer service...
2. SAP Customer Service (CS/SM) - Service Management module
Real World SAP CS and SD, Repair Orders, Service Orders, Service Contracts...
3. Customer Service Mastery: Delight Every Customer
Master Customer Service using this practical customer care course...
Best States For a Packer
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a packer. The best states for people in this position are Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Minnesota. Packers make the most in Washington with an average salary of $34,539. Whereas in Idaho and Wyoming, they would average $34,234 and $33,210, respectively. While packers would only make an average of $32,963 in Minnesota, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Wisconsin
$32,228
Avg. Salary
2. North Dakota
$32,297
Avg. Salary
3. Iowa
$31,676
Avg. Salary
How Do Packers Rate Their Jobs?
Top Packer Employers
Most Common Employers For Packer
| Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Target | $35,994 | $17.30 | 206 |
| 2 | Amazon | $33,367 | $16.04 | 4,459 |
| 3 | UPS | $32,779 | $15.76 | 241 |
| 4 | General Mills | $32,539 | $15.64 | 228 |
| 5 | P&G | $32,117 | $15.44 | 196 |
| 6 | Pactiv | $31,511 | $15.15 | 644 |
| 7 | Tyson Foods | $31,295 | $15.05 | 394 |
| 8 | Frito-Lay | $31,080 | $14.94 | 662 |
| 9 | Shearer's Foods | $30,856 | $14.83 | 226 |
| 10 | Walmart | $30,848 | $14.83 | 248 |
Becoming a Packer FAQs
How Long Does It Take To Become A Packer?
It takes 2 years of professional experience to become a packer. That is the time it takes to learn specific packer skills, but does not account for time spent in formal education.