Chains bringing jobs where needed

IN THE CLUB: Sam’s Club Member Service Assistant Manager Kimberly Daponte, standing left, and Membership Manager Olivia Dear, standing right, speak with applicants at the Sam’s Club Hiring Center in Fall River. The chain’s new location in the city brings 135 jobs to be filled. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERRSON
IN THE CLUB: Sam’s Club Member Service Assistant Manager Kimberly Daponte, standing left, and Membership Manager Olivia Dear, standing right, speak with applicants at the Sam’s Club Hiring Center in Fall River. The chain’s new location in the city brings 135 jobs to be filled. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERRSON

Editor’s note: This is the fifth in an occasional series of stories that will feature the companies and industries creating jobs in the region.

With 135 jobs to fill for the new Sam’s Club in Fall River, store manager Rachel Dufault has been working full time at the hiring center at the New Harbour Mall. Sam’s Club will open in the fall and is looking for a wide range of employees, from cake decorators to managers and pharmacy technicians.
“A lot of people who come in tell me they’re excited about the new store in Fall River and the jobs it’s bringing,” said Dufault.
It’s no wonder they’re excited about the jobs. Even though Massachusetts’ unemployment rate was at 6.6 percent in May, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fall River’s unemployment rate that month was 12.5 percent, according to the Massachusetts Office of Labor and Workforce Development. The Fall River store is one of four Sam’s Clubs and Wal-Mart stores in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts in hiring mode. All together, the four stores are hiring for more than 450 jobs. Sam’s is owned and operated by Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Wal-Mart is hiring for 85 newly created jobs at each of its two relocated stores in Massachusetts, one in Fall River and the other in Swansea.
“I don’t look at the statistics I hear on TV about unemployment,” said Dufault, who was on the other side of the hiring desk 13 years ago after she was laid off from a job in shipping and receiving at another company in Fall River and found her way to a Sam’s Club.
“I applied for an hourly position, and I had some management experience, so Sam’s Club gave me a management position right off the bat,” said Dufault, a Fall River native. “I never dreamed I would run my own club.”
Dufault’s own “club” in Fall River is a 130,000-square-foot store.
In addition to the 135 jobs open at the new Fall River Sam’s Club, the company is hiring 140 people for its remodeled store in Warwick, due to open this fall. The old store in Warwick was razed in 2011. BJ’s Wholesale Club, a competitor to Sam’s, opened a new store in Seekonk last August.
The Fall River Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart stores are bright spots on the employment landscape in what’s been a long, “tough time” for the city, said Jay Pateakos, vice president of business development for the Fall River Area Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
“We appreciate the kinds of jobs the big-box stores are bringing. People need to be employed,” said Pateakos, pointing to Fall River’s double-digit unemployment rate, traditionally one of the highest in the state, the decline of manufacturing and some of the city’s devastating job losses, such as Quaker Fabric.
At one time the city’s largest employer, Quaker Fabric had 2,400 people at its peak, according to the website textilehistory.org. Quaker went bankrupt in August 2007.
“The city’s been reeling from that,” Pateakos said of the closing of Quaker Fabric. The new Wal-Mart will be a boost, he said.
Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club will provide jobs in the next few months while Fall River continues efforts to broaden its industrial base, he said.
In the longer view, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth is about 50 percent through construction of the $31 million Massachusetts Accelerator for Biomanufacturing in Fall River, said Paul Vigeant, UMass Dartmouth assistant chancellor for economic development.
Target date for occupancy is October, with biotech companies expected to start in January 2014.
“The accelerator will have about 12 to 15 people initially. It’s a pretty small facility, but hopefully, the biotech companies that succeed with developing products will eventually build other facilities and employ a lot more people when they go into full production,” said Vigeant.
The Massachusetts Accelerator for Biomanufacturing is planned as an anchor for the growing SouthCoast Life Science and Technology Park.
In the meantime, the big-box retailers are creating jobs as the economy struggles to rebound, said Edwin M. Mazze, distinguished university professor of business administration at the University of Rhode Island. “In the large retail chains like Wal-Mart, I think you’re seeing some hiring because they cut back and now they’re seeing people are beginning to spend again,” Mazze said. “There was a time when stores like Home Depot were doing no hiring. Now they’re seeing the housing situation starting to come back in a positive way,” he said.
Sam’s Club spokesman Mark Scott, based at the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., said the company is focused on assisting small business.
“It’s a challenging time economically for small business, and it’s our mission to come in … and help them survive and thrive through challenging times,” said Scott.
“A lot of small businesses don’t have storage rooms, so it’s really an advantage for them to be able to come in early and restock,” he said. There’s also an option for them to order in the evening and have their order waiting in the morning.
“A lot of small-business owners build a great rapport with our local management team,” said Scott.
Both Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart are increasing their number of employees year after year, he said.
Currently, Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart employ 11,000 people in Massachusetts and 2,400 in Rhode Island, said Scott.
The average wage is $13.86 an hour for regular full-time employees, with benefits, he added.
The jobs for the two stores cover a wide range, from part-time, parking-lot attendants who collect carts to managers and sales personnel who have expertise in electronics, said Scott.
The two Wal-Mart stores currently looking to hire 85 people each at the relocated stores in Swansea and in Fall River, due to open this fall and at the end of July, respectively, show “we continue to see tremendous growth opportunities for business in the area,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg.
One group getting special attention in hiring is veterans, she said.
“Wal-Mart is committed to hiring 100,000 veterans over the next five years,” said Henneberg. “When you fight for your country, you shouldn’t have to fight for a job when you get back home.” •

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