800 apply for positions at Brewer Wal-Mart New Supercenter to employ between 300 and 350

BREWER – About 800 people already have applied for jobs at the Wal-Mart Supercenter scheduled to open June 18.

The Bangor area’s first Supercenter will employ between 300 and 350 full- and part-time workers, Timothy Champine, co-manager of the unfinished store, said Tuesday. New staff members are scheduled to begin setting up fixtures and stocking shelves on Monday, May 12.

Three shifts will work 24 hours a day to get the store open, he said. Starting salaries for most positions is between $6.50 and $8.50 per hour.

The flow of applicants has been steady since the management team starting taking applications Monday, March 10, in the store’s temporary headquarters on the second floor of the Brewer Auditorium.

“We figure we need a pool of 1,000 applicants to get 300 to 350 good ones,” said Champine. “We hope to end up with a 60-40 split between full- and part-time employees.”

The Wal-Mart Supercenter located on Wilson Street is seeking employees with experience working in sales or community service, or as a cashier. Because the 158,000-square-foot store will include a grocery department, the store also is seeking workers with grocery experience.

Champine said that the 11-person management team so far has been impressed with the quality of applicants.

“Unfortunately for them and fortunately for us, we’ve had a lot of former millworkers coming in,” he said, referring to the recent shutdown of Great Northern Paper mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket and to the layoffs at Georgia-Pacific’s Old Town paper mill.

Applications will be accepted through April at the Brewer Auditorium. The office is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday.

For more information, call 989-2439.