{"id":27681,"date":"2022-03-01T07:53:21","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T10:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=27681"},"modified":"2026-04-23T10:55:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T13:55:37","slug":"macau-unemployment-rate-rises-amid-junket-sector-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-unemployment-rate-rises-amid-junket-sector-crisis","title":{"rendered":"Macau unemployment rate rises amid junket sector crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The unemployment rate in Macau continues to rise due to the crisis in the junket industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Macau.-\u00a0<strong>The Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC)<\/strong> has revealed that Macau&#8217;s unemployment rate rose 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The number of unemployed people grew to 12,400\u00a0<\/strong>with most of those unemployed having previously worked in gambling, junkets and construction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In December, several casino operators, including\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/mgm-china-confirms-end-to-agreements-with-junket-promoters\" target=\"_blank\">MGM China<\/a>,\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/lvs-ends-cooperation-agreements-with-three-main-junket-promoters\" target=\"_blank\">Las Vegas Sands<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/melco-confirms-end-of-agreements-with-junket-promoters\" target=\"_blank\">Melco Resorts<\/a>\u00a0ended agreements with their primary VIP gaming promoters. The sector has been in crisis after the arrests of\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/suncity-group-chairman-arrested-in-macau\" target=\"_blank\">Alvin Chau<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-legend-development-ceo-resigns-after-arrest\" target=\"_blank\">Levo Chan Weng Lin<\/a>, the heads of<strong>\u00a0Suncity Group Holdings <\/strong>and <strong>Tak Chun Group<\/strong>, two of the city\u2019s largest junket groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The number of junket operators has been falling each year from 235 in 2013 to a reported <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-number-of-junket-licences-falls-to-46\" target=\"_blank\">46 junket licences<\/a>, although Macau\u2019s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) had said it was still evaluating 29 previously licensed operators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The unemployment rate in Macau continues to rise due to the crisis in the junket industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Macau's unemployment rate escalated from November 2021 to January 2022, reaching 3.2% overall and 4.2% for residents, with 12,400 individuals, predominantly from the gambling and junket sectors, now jobless. This economic downturn is directly linked to the ongoing crisis within the VIP gaming promoter industry, evidenced by major casino operators terminating agreements and a drastic reduction in licensed junket operators following high-profile arrests and intensified regulatory scrutiny.","focusai_entities":"MGM China, Las Vegas Sands, Melco Resorts, Alvin Chau, Levo Chan Weng Lin, Suncity Group Holdings, Tak Chun Group, Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC), Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ)","focusai_location":"Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.95), compliance_legal (0.85), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Macau GGR Impact","query":"What is the projected long-term impact of the junket industry's structural decline on Macau's overall GGR and the financial performance of integrated resort concessionaires?"},{"label":"Regulatory Adaptation","query":"How is the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) adapting its regulatory and licensing frameworks for VIP gaming and B2B operators in light of these significant market dislocations?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16338],"tags":[23906],"class_list":["post-27681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-east-asia-news","tag-macau-casinos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27681"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27707,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27681\/revisions\/27707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}