Macau casino employees' earnings down 5.5% in June year-on-year

Macau's Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) said the average earnings of the Macau gaming sector’s full-time employees amounted to MOP 23,200 (USD 2,900) in June, excluding bonuses. This represents a year-on-year decrease of 5.5%. Dealers’ average earnings were down by 7.6% year-on-year to MOP 19,270 (USD 2,400) in June.

The latest data shows the pandemic impact on Macau's gaming industry. According to a DSEC statement on Thursday, the gaming industry’s number of full-time employees stood at 57,459 at the end of the second quarter, a year-on-year decrease of 381. The number of dealers rose by 131 year-on-year but dropped by 115 quarter-to-quarter.

The statement said that due to the COVID-19 efects, the gaming sector had only 25 vacancies at the end of the second quarter, down by 879 year-on-year, as reported by Macau News. In terms of recruitment prerequisites, 68% of the vacancies required working experience and 76% required tertiary education, while knowledge of Putonghua and English both were required for 88% of the vacancies.

In the second quarter, only 129 new employees were hired, a 93.4% decline from the same quarter of last year when the sector hired 1,942 people.

Furthermore, the statement said that the sector’s employee recruitment rate (0.2%) and employee turnover rate (0.6) dropped by 3.2 and 1.7 percentage points respectively, while the job vacancy rate fell to near zero. “These indicators reflect a substantial decline in demand for manpower in the gaming sector,” the bureau noted.

Public servants and gaming industry staff as well as public utility and banking sector employees are Macau’s top earners, official statistics show. According to the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), Macau had 41 casinos at the end of the second quarter, three of which – all of them owned by SJM – had their operations suspended. According to DICJ statistics, in the first half of the year Macau’s gross gaming revenues fell 77.4% year-on-year to MOP 33.72 billion, of which MOP 30.48 billion were generated in the first quarter.