WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS, HIRING BEST PRACTICES, CAREER ADVICE.
PPE Essentials for Warehouse Employees
Posted on 12/21 by Erin Helms
All workers who encounter chemical, radiological, physical, electrical, mechanical, or other workplace hazards must wear PPE. Employers must provide PPE in warehouses when it is needed to protect workers from job-related hazards. Here are some PPE essentials for warehouse employees.
Personal Protective Equipment
PPE protects the body against hazards that cause severe injuries in the workplace. Making PPE available for your employees is vital because it minimizes the risk of physical injuries and long-term conditions such as back pain.
Eye and Face Protection
Proper eye and face protection lessen the risk of foreign objects coming into contact with the eyes, nose and mouth. Safety glasses with safety frames, lenses, and side shields provide impact protection against dust and flying objects. For complete coverage around the eyes, opt for safety goggles. Safety goggles are ideal for workers needing additional protection against liquids, dust and flying objects. Face masks and respirators can also help to protect workers from harmful substances.
Head Protection
For protection against falling objects and extreme temperatures, warehouse employees need adequate head protection: Hard hats can protect your employees from falling objects and debris. Hard hats feature a 4-point or 6-point suspension to distribute weight and force throughout the hard hat. Suspension prevents force from concentrating on one area of the head. Balaclava face masks protect the head and neck from cold temperatures, wind and dust. They fit beneath hard hats and helmets without being bulky. These masks offer adequate protection for the head and neck from freezing temperatures in perishable distribution warehouses.
Hand and Arm Protection
Hand and arm PPE protects warehouse employees against sharp or hazardous objects and extreme temperatures. Warehouse gloves make packing orders easy and safe. Work gloves protect workers' hands against cuts, heat, and liquids when handling hazardous substances or operating dangerous machinery.
Foot and Leg Protection
Warehouse employees must have proper foot and leg protection. Steel toe work shoes feature steel capping over the toe area to give maximum protection against falling objects. These shoes are ideal for employees working with heavy machinery such as forklifts.
Body Protection
High-visibility clothing for workers in low-lit areas is essential: High-visibility clothing is perfect for visibility and cold protection in extreme environments. High-visibility vests are lightweight and reflective. These are a must for working near hazards such as moving vehicles. Back support belts provide lumbar support when lifting heavy objects.
Hearing Protection
Disposable earplugs reduce the noise of loud machinery. These earplugs come in corded or cordless design with a foam material that conforms to a person's ear canal shape for ultimate comfort. Behind-the-head earmuffs are ultra-light, making them ideal to use with hard hats. Cap-mount earmuffs are attached to a hard hat for safe and effective protection. Finally, over-the-head earmuffs are perfect for those locations where a hard hat is not required.
Hire Temporary Warehouse Employees With LaborMAX
The team at LaborMAX can provide your warehouse with dependable, well-screened individuals ready to work.
Browse Available Jobs
Are you looking for work? LaborMAX can find you the right job.
SEARCH JOBS NOWCategories
What's Happening
World Cup 2026 Staffing: What Employers Need to Know
When 6.5 million fans pour into North America for the FIFA World Cup, who staffs everything around them? The answer is reshaping the labor market in a dozen U.S. cities right now — and it reaches far beyond the stadium. If your business operates in a host market, World Cup 2026 staffing pressure is already competing for the same workers you rely on. Here's what's happening, why it touches every industry, and how to keep your crews full through the busiest summer in years.
Read more >>Summer 2026 Event Staffing: Coverage When It Counts in Six Host Cities
Match Week 2026 is heading to Kansas City, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, and Seattle — and if you run a hotel, a venue, a facility, or an event-services company in one of those cities, the headline isn't the matches. It's the squeeze. When hundreds of thousands of visitors land in a single market over a few weeks, every operation that touches them feels it at once. Front desks get slammed. Banquet floors run short. Parking lots, loading docks, and event corridors need bodies that didn't exist on the schedule last year. And the labor pool you normally pull from? It's getting recruited away by everyone else trying to staff the same surge. This is the part most operators underestimate. The crowds are predictable. The labor gap that comes with them is what catches teams flat-footed.
Read more >>The 2026 Labor Shortage Is Stalling Projects — Here's How to Staff Through It
Your next project isn't behind because of weather. It's behind because you can't staff it. That's the reality facing operations leaders across construction, warehousing, and logistics in 2026. The work is there. The demand is there. What's missing are the skilled, reliable people needed to do it — and the gap is widening every quarter. Here's what the numbers say, and what they mean for your business.
Read more >>