Doing a quick 180

COEUR d'ALENE - WinCo Foods will hire about 180 people for the supermarket it plans to open in Coeur d'Alene in the first half of November, a company official said Wednesday.

Management staff for the store will be made up of individuals who have been transferred from other stores, said Michael Read, vice president of public and legal affairs for WinCo.

The Coeur d'Alene store is at 1485 W. Appleway Ave., just east of Ramsey Road and north of Interstate 90.

Read said the company is already accepting applications online for the Coeur d'Alene store. The company website is www.wincofoods.com.

He said the company is looking for new employees for every aspect of store operations.

He said the company usually pays slightly above the prevailing wage for each position in the industry.

The company, through its employee stock ownership plan, contributes the equivalent of 20 percent of each employee's annual total compensation to the employee's retirement account. The contributions are made entirely by the company, not the employee.

To be eligible for the program the employee must work at least 500 hours in the first six months of employment, be 19 years old, and accumulate at least 1,000 hours worked per year.

Read said the company also provides health insurance with low deductibles.

WinCo has nearly 90 stores in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, California and Arizona. The company's corporate office is in Boise.