Gaming sector records decline in employees

The gaming sector has seen a decrease in the number of employees, recording a downturn of 1,774 year-on-year at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. 

Data from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) shows that there were 54,839 full-time employees in the sector by the end of 2021. Of this total, there were 22,406 dealers, a plunge of 758 from the same time the previous year. In addition, the number of service and sales workers went down by 410 to 4,899.

Average earnings (excluding bonuses) of the full-time employees in the sector were MOP23,700, up by 1.1% year-on-year. Average earnings of dealers rose by 1.1% to MOP20,020.

By the end of last year there were only 58 vacancies in the sector, an increase of 32 year-on-year, although it should be remembered that this is from a lower base of employment. 

In terms of recruitment prerequisites, 41.4% of the vacancies required work experience, 27.6% required tertiary education. The requirement for knowledge of Mandarin and English stood at 98.3% and 81.0% respectively.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, the number of new recruits and employees leaving employment totalled 128 and 521 respectively. The employee recruitment rate (0.2%) and the employee turnover rate (0.9%) both dropped by 0.1 percentage points year-on-year, while the job vacancy rate was only 0.1%. These indicators reflected that the demand for manpower in the gaming sector remained relatively low.

The DSEC survey coverage excludes junket promoters and junket associates.

With regard to vocational training, the Gaming Sector had 309,803 participants attending training courses provided by the enterprise (including courses organised by the enterprise or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the enterprise), representing a year-on-year increase of 57.3%.