Casinos expected to suffer from staff shortage post-pandemic
The casino industry is expected to see a shortage of staff once the economy returns to normal and operators should have a clear plan for reemploying staff who have left.
Andrew Klebanow, co-founder and senior partner of C3 Gaming, said that Las Vegas, to this day, is still short on staff, following casino closures during the peak of the pandemic.
In an online seminar of the French Chamber of Commerce (FMCC) titled “The Road to Macau Tourism Recovery,” the gaming consultant said that not only are they short on staff in the hospitality industry, but also in all sectors of the economy.
US casinos are just one of many industries struggling to add new workers, and they find themselves competing with each other not only for casino workers, but for people with experience in the hotel, restaurant and tourism industries, to name just a few.
Back in April in Las Vegas, about 6,000 people attended jobs fair in which 105 casino and other employers offered 13,000 jobs.
“I suspect you will have this problem also, considering how many of your expatriate employees have left. There are just a lot of people who have left. A lot of expatriates went home and are very reluctant to return. They just said that they were done,” he said.
“You need to plan for this. What is it going to take to get these employees back and get them back in a hurry when business kicks in? Because you will find yourself not getting the hotel rooms done on time, and failing to get people into the restaurants,” Klebanow added.
Echoing the same sentiments, Rutger Verschuren, chairman of the FMCC and president of the Macau Hotel Association, said that he also expects to see the same problem in Macau.
“We have to be ready. […] One room attendant can do 12 to 13 rooms a day, depending on the property. Considering there are 40,000 rooms in Macau, we need more room attendants for that,” he added.
Meanwhile, in terms of service quality: the pandemic has changed everything – from consumer expectations to customer behaviors.
“People are going to be so tired in this two- to three-year pandemic; they will take whatever you’ve got,” Klebanow said.
