Drop in Macau gaming workers continues in Q4
Authorities in Macau have revealed that the unemployment rate in the city rose in the final quarter of 2021.
Macau.- The Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) has reported that the number of full-time employees in the gaming industry, excluding junket operators, continued to decline in the final quarter of 2021. It said the demand for labour remained “relatively low”.
At the end of 2021, the gaming industry had 54,839 full-time employees, a decrease of 1,774 from the same period in 2020. The number of dealers fell by 758 and the number of service and sales workers by 410.
Hiring and turnover employee rates remained low at 0.2 per cent and 0.9 per cent, respectively, and the vacancy rate was only 0.1 per cent.
Nonetheless, in the final quarter of 2021, the average non-bonus income of full-time gaming employees rose by about 1.1 per cent year-on-year to MOP23,700 (US$2,944). The average income of dealers was MOP20,020.
A week ago, the DSEC revealed that Macau’s unemployment rate had risen from November 2021 to January 2022. Both the overall unemployment rate (3.2 per cent) and the resident unemployment rate (4.2 per cent) increased by 0.1 percentage points when compared to October 2021 to December 2021.
The Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) also reported that by the end of 2021, the number of non-local workers employed by all six gaming operators in Macau had fallen by 32 per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic.
