That means about 95 percent of those who wanted to keep working in the stores were able to get jobs, said Jim Radke, who is in the process of moving to Honolulu as Ross' first locally based district manager.
"That's a pretty good amount," he said, and more personnel will be hired in October as the stores' reopening nears.
"We hired the majority of our supervisory staff from the existing Marshalls and T.J. Maxx stores," he said.
Radke, who gave a orientation for store supervisors over the weekend, said Ross Stores is in much better financial shape than Marshalls parent company. Ross has a different merchandise mix and has proved it can make it in the islands, he added.
The company also plans to buy more local merchandise, especially aloha wear, and will introduce new departments here as needed, such as home and bathroom sections, Radke said.
Ross Stores, which started in 1982 with half a dozen outlets in the San Francisco area and now has 299 stores nationwide, opened its first Hawaii store almost three years ago at Pearlridge Center.
Two years ago it opened a second store in the former GEM location in the Windward City Shopping Center.
In late July, the company took over leasehold rights to six retail positions in the islands that had been owned by TJX Companies Inc., owner of Marshalls. Five were Marshalls stores - on Oahu at Hawaii Kai Towne Center, Ward Gateway Center and Pearl Highlands Center; one in Kona and one in Kahului - and one was a T.J. Maxx outlet at Stadium Marketplace.
The T.J. Maxx store was closed for good and the Marshalls stores at Hawaii Kai and Pearl Highlands were closed for conversion to Ross stores, as were the Kona and Kahului outlets. The Ward Avenue property, for now, is still a Marshalls but it is scheduled to close in February.
The change gives Ross, a fast-growing discount retailer, a major presence in Hawaii. That will be boosted next spring when the biggest isle Ross Dress for Less opens in 44,000 square feet in a two-story building on Keeaumoku Street.
The result will be a seven-store Ross operation in Hawaii when Keeaumoku opens and Radke said the company expects more expansion.
"Future plans would include three more stores on Oahu at this point," he said, and the company is also looking into neighbor island expansion.
Ross' so-called "off-price" concept has caught on here, he said, describing the existing two Ross outlets as high-volume stores for the company.
Ross takes brand-name merchandise and sells it at discounts of between 20 to 60 percent.
Company officials say Ross achieves that in part through bulk-buying discounts and its willingness to buy products off-season and hold them until the appropriate season comes around again.