2,000 People Apply For 110 Openings At New Store Kootenai County’s 7.6% Jobless Rate Sends Flood Of Hopefuls To Safeway

Talk about a county hungry for halfway decent jobs.

The new Safeway on Government Way and Neider Avenue needed about 110 people for a March opening.

About 2,000 locals applied.

“I haven’t seen anything like it,” said manager Dale Schaak, who has spent 34 years with the grocer. “We’ve had a really good response from the Coeur d’Alene community.”

Buried under stacks of applications, Schaak and his staff said they hope to start making some decisions about positions by next week.

For many Kootenai County residents, having a good-paying, full-time job lined up by next week would be a blessing.

“Let me tell you, it’s slim pickings out there right now,” said Vick Harris, 40, a new Coeur d’Alene resident working a part-time retail job while hunting for a full-time teaching position.

“There’s plenty of part-time jobs out there, but employers don’t want to hire you full-time,” he said. “They don’t want to give you benefits.”

Coming from Prince George, British Columbia, Harris is looking for “the job I want, and it may be in Georgia or wherever,” he said, thumbing through job listings at the Coeur d’Alene Job Service office. “But you just have to get off your butt and find it.”

Kootenai County’s unemployment rate sits at 7.6 percent, less than other counties in the Panhandle such as Shoshone or Boundary counties, but far more than the national and state rates.

Layoffs at Louisiana-Pacific mills, the closure of Coeur d’Alene Greyhound Park in Post Falls and of Keystone Lighting in Hayden boosted the rate in the last half of 1995.

Neighboring Spokane County had a 5.6 percent unemployment rate in December.

Predictions of economic slowdown in the county’s vital construction sector show the Kootenai rate may creep higher.

Kootenai County’s high rate contributed to the big turnout for Safeway jobs, said Kathryn Tacke, labor analyst for the Idaho Department of Employment.

“People view supermarket jobs as higher-paying and with better benefits than most of the retail jobs around here,” she said.

It’s not the first time North Idahoans have flooded a new employer who has just a few openings.

More than 300 applied for 28 managerial positions with Harpers Inc. in Post Falls in January 1994.

In August 1993, more than 1,500 people wanted 300 manufacturing jobs at Harpers, which paid about $7 an hour.

Although Schaak doesn’t have an exact count of his applicants, any number approaching 2,000 would represent more than 4 percent of the Kootenai County work force applying to one business.

Although beginning Safeway clerks get paid $4.90 an hour, veteran workers can earn $12 an hour with benefits.

Applicants fill out a 45-question form that gauges their work attitudes and how they might react to different work situations, Schaak said.

Those who make the grade get interviews. If Schaak and his assistants find them to be a good fit, the applicants take a drug test paid for by the company. Those who pass the drug test start work.

The 57,000-square-foot store will open March 6 using 40 or so workers from existing Safeway stores, for a total work force of 150-170, Schaak said.

“It’s quite a store,” he said. “We’ve even got a China Express deli here.”

, DataTimes