What Is a Loader and How to Become One

By ZipRecruiter Marketplace Research Team

A loader uses hand machinery or heavy equipment to move cargo between transportation vessels and storage warehouses while observing all loading and unloading safety practices. As a loader, your responsibilities include verifying the times that shipments both arrive and depart, as well as entering the relevant information from documents into a computer system. For example, you examine the bill of lading to determine that all the contents of the shipment are present and create detailed inventory lists. Other duties include packaging, labeling, and sending outgoing shipments.

Typical qualifications to become a warehouse loader include a high school diploma or GED certificate, adequate physical strength to lift and move packages for the duration of your shift, and a clean background check. If you work in a warehouse, you can often advance by becoming certified to operate a forklift or other heavy machinery. Jobs that involve the use of heavier equipment, such as a crane to load a shipping container onto a ship, often require several years of prior experience in the warehouse industry. However, employers typically provide on-the-job training or access to training and may require you to obtain a forklift operating license.

Warehouse loaders and unloaders are the most basic position in this category; you use hand trucks or forklifts to move boxes to or from a vehicle for shipment or storage. More advanced loader jobs involve bulk loaders who put material like sand, coal, or grain into railcars. Loader jobs are not limited to the civilian industry; in the military, an autoloader technician is responsible for maintaining the machinery that loads ammunition into chambers for tanks and other artillery. For any loader job, you need to have strong visual and spatial recognition skills to determine whether a load is safe to transport.