Culinary union plans march on Las Vegas Strip
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Culinary union members are expected to march on the Strip on Thursday night for the second time this fall to push for a return to work.
Union spokeswoman Bethany Khan said about 35 percent of the 60,000 union members, or about 21,000, had not returned to their previous jobs.
Thursday’s rally is set to start at 5 p.m. at Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue.
In a march last month, thousands of hospitality workers walked pass casinos that laid them off 18 months ago. Chefs, bellhops, maids and waiters encouraged the casinos to bring back their full crew.
The gaming industry rebounded significantly this year, with casino companies in the midst of a historic stretch of gambling revenue that has eclipsed $1 billion in each of the past seven months. It’s the second-longest streak in history, and just one month shy of the state’s longest gaming win streak that was recorded from November 2006 to May 2007.
But that recovery has been slower for workers, especially those in the hospitality industry.
Las Vegas had the second highest unemployment rate in August, at 8.2 percent, with only Los Angeles’ 8.8 percent ranking higher. Part of that can be attributed to the slow rebound of hospitality and leisure jobs that employed more than a quarter of the valley’s workforce before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
More than 292,000 people worked in the hospitality and leisure sector in Las Vegas in February 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. By April 2020, that number dropped by more than half to 142,000, and it bottomed out in May at 127,000.
As of August, roughly 65,000 of those jobs had not yet returned, and that is after two new casinos — Circa and Resorts World Las Vegas — opened during the pandemic and added thousands of new jobs to the sector.
Economists have said that in time most of those jobs could return, but it could be as many as 18 months from now. And those jobs may look vastly different than the ones that were lost.
clochhead@reviewjournal.com.@ColtonLochhead on Twitter. Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.
