Its pretty amazing when you think about. Wal-Mart is opening a new store in Evergreen Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. The store is located near the border of Evergreen Park and Chicago, so its not surprising that the vast majority of its job applicants, who apparently didn’t get the Wal-Mart Is Evil memo, came from the city. What is surprising is that they received 25,000 applications to fill 325 jobs.
(Crain’s) ? The new Wal-Mart Stores Inc. location opening Friday in suburban Evergreen Park received a record 25,000 applications for 325 positions, the highest for any one location in the retailer?s history, a company official says.
(….)
90% of the applications came from Chicago residents. The new 140,000-square-foot store, which is set to open at 7 a.m. Friday, sits by the border of Evergreen Park and Chicago
And just why is it that so many Chicago residents are so interested in working outside Chicago ? Perhaps this has something to do with it:
Eighteen months after the Chicago City Council torpedoed a South Side Wal-Mart, 24,500 Chicagoans applied for 325 jobs at a Wal-Mart opening Friday in south suburban Evergreen Park, one block outside the city limits.
(…)
“I always tell people I’m not for Wal-Mart, but I am for that project coming into the city and to my ward. We can’t beat them,” said Ald. Howard Brookins Jr. (21st). “The same things they talk about Wal-Mart doing to Small Town U.S.A when they build on the outskirts of town is the same thing they have done to the City of Chicago without fanfare. Nobody distinguishes that if I cross Western Avenue at 95th Street, I am no longer in Chicago. For all practical purposes, Wal-Mart is in the city of Chicago without us receiving any benefit. You’re going to see the parking lot filled with cars with Chicago city stickers.”
Well, so long as the political leadership keeps fighting to keep Wal-Mart out, I’m sure that you will Alderman Brookins. Perhaps you need to rethink your priorities.
H/T: Outside The Beltway and The QandO Blog
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