The Casino Industry Is Facing A Worker Shortage
Casinos were hard hit during COVID-19 shutdowns and the subsequent slow and restricted-laden reopening process. With restrictions easing, the industry is now dealing with another crisis: a shortage of employees.
In Pennsylvania, Rush Street Gaming has increased wages to at least $15/hour for all non-tipped employees. Rush Street’s efforts mirror a growing nationwide push for a $15/hour minimum wage, and several companies have jumped on board, almost certainly with an eye towards bringing workers receiving government enhanced unemployment benefits (presently an extra $300 per week) back into the labor market.
The situation is more dire in other locales. In Colorado, casinos are offering four-figure sign-on bonuses to applicants. Connecticut casinos (and the state of Connecticut) are offering similar sign-on bonuses.
“We’re in an employee crisis,” said Scott Porter, director of corporate casino operations for Triple Crown Casinos in Colorado. “We can’t even get applications. It’s crazy.”
The same scenario is playing out in every casino market, as the following headlines highlight:
- Mississippi casinos are setting revenue records, but struggling to find workers
- [Las Vegas] Casinos hiring for hundreds of jobs to keep up with growing demand
- Atlantic City Struggles To Fill Casino Worker Positions
- Connecticut casinos looking to fill hundreds of jobs – offering their own bonuses to attract workers
The Cause Is Fairly Obvious
Casino jobs run the gamut in terms of skills and wages and are usually in high demand across the board.
The current worker shortage is a combination of two interrelated factors:
- Ongoing concerns about COVID-19
- Unemployment benefits and stimulus benefits
The latter is driving the increased wages and incentives offered by casinos. To compete with the payments people are receiving from unemployment, casinos must increase pay, benefits, and incentives.
As is the case in Connecticut, there is also a growing push by local and state governments to shift the added unemployment benefits to back-to-work benefits, such as sign-on bonuses.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, announced his “Back to Work CT” program, which aims to give one-time $1,000 bonuses to 10,000 state residents who go back to work. Recipients must have filed a state unemployment claim before May 30 and then obtain and maintain a full-time job for eight straight weeks.
And the issue extends beyond the casino industry.
“It’s a giant nightmare for anybody to get anybody to work. We’re running on a skeleton crew. We’re severely understaffed in the kitchen, in the dining room,” Joe Buccheri, owner of Joey B’s Restaurant in Berlin, Connecticut, told NBC Connecticut.
Improving COVID Numbers Should Lead to an Improved Job Market
The current situation is difficult for employers, but it’s very nice for potential employees as wages and benefits are likely to stay at their current elevated levels.
Provided COVID-19 transmission continues to slow to a trickle (and hopefully all but disappears), the spigot of government funds will get turned back off or fully shifted to back-to-work efforts.
That is good news for another reason, as it demonstrates the economic recovery from COVID-19 could be relatively fast, and the fear that jobs that existed pre-COVID would disappear forever was not only overstated, but those jobs could return better than before.
Of course, that won’t be true across every industry. Still, it looks to be the case at casinos (and the hospitality industry more generally), where revenues are already hitting pre-pandemic levels and with the industry gearing up for a post-pandemic boom this summer as the 12-plus month COVID hibernation ends.
Steve Ruddock is the content director for BettingUSA and the Editor-in-Chief of Gaming Law Review.
Steve has covered the legal and legislative developments in the US gambling sector for more than a decade for online and print publications.
