Wal-Mart is about to take a bigger bite of Chattanooga's grocery market by getting smaller -- at least in the size of its typical store.
The world's biggest retailer said Thursday it has begun hiring the first of 95 employees who will staff Wal-Mart's new 42,000-square-foot Neighborhood Market store being built in Dalton, Ga., which will open sometime this fall. Wal-Mart is already training workers for a similar-sized supermarket that will open next month in East Brainerd and is preparing to add other new Neighborhood Markets later this year in East Ridge, Hixson and Middle Valley.
Photo from Wal-Mart's media selection of the interior and exteriors of Neighborhood MarketsHow to apply for Dalton job
* Wal-Mart is accepting job applications for the Dalton Neighborhood Market store at a temporary Wal-Mart hiring center set up at Walnut Square Mall, 816 Walnut Square Blvd, Suite #37, in Dalton. The center is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday to take applications for both full- and part-time associates.* Wal-Mart said it provides a variety of affordable health and well-being benefits including health-care coverage with no lifetime maximum. Wal-Mart also offers eligible associates matching 401(k) contributions of up to 6 percent of pay, discounts on general merchandise, an Associate Stock Purchase Program and company-paid life insurance. Additionally, eligible associates receive a quarterly incentive based on store performance.* Wal-Mart will offer a job to any eligible U.S. veteran honorably discharged from active duty since the Veterans Welcome Home Commitment launched on Memorial Day 2013. Interested veterans may find out more here.* The majority of new associates will begin work in September to help prepare the store for its grand opening.* Interested applicants also may also apply online here.
Wal-Mart opened the first of its local grocery-only Neighborhood Market stores in Fort Oglethorpe in January.
The new stores are only about one-fourth as big as Wal-Mart's superstores, which already have captured a major share of what Chattanoogans spend on grocery items with 16 such stores within a 30-mile radius of Chattanooga.
The $4.4 million Neighborhood Market store on Walnut Avenue in Dalton is being built in the Bry-Man's Plaza shopping center on the site of what was once a Winn-Dixie grocery store. According to store manager Allan Rittenhouse, the store will be hiring both full- and part-time associates and is taking applications at the Walnut Square Mall.
"Wal-Mart is a company with many opportunities for professional growth, and we are excited about finding wonderful new associates to join us," Rittenhouse said in a statement Thursday.
The majority of new associates will begin work in September to help prepare the store for its grand opening.
Wal-Mart introduced its grocery-only stores under the Neighborhood Market brand in 1998. Such stores typically stock about 28,000 grocery items, employ from 80 to 100 workers and are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In the Chattanooga area, the stores are being developed by Polestar Development, a subsidiary of the Chattanooga-based Hutton Co.