Hotel, Leisure Workers Employed at Peak Level in Las Vegas
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Sector Eliminated Nearly 175,000 Jobs in 2020, But Now Has Fully Recovered
The leisure and hospitality sector in Las Vegas shed nearly 60% of its jobs essentially overnight in 2000, and it's taken more than three years to recover.
But now those jobs have reached a new peak.
As of October, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows leisure and hospitality employment was above 302,000, approximately 10,000 more employees than in February 2020, and nearly 5,000 above the previous peak in 2019.
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, the sector was decimated as nearly 175,000 jobs were eliminated. For comparison, from peak-to-trough during the Great Recession, leisure and hospitality employment declined by about 10%, or about 25,000 jobs.
The leisure and hospitality employment sector includes hotel workers, food service positions, arts, entertainment and recreation jobs, including casino positions. Not all leisure and hospitality employees returned to the industry post-pandemic. Many opted to make career changes as remote work became increasingly accepted. Office-using jobs, namely professional and business services, returned to peak pre-pandemic levels within about two years.
Las Vegas hotel occupancy was near 80% year to date in November, representing the third-highest occupancy nationally. Las Vegas is the largest hospitality destination by room count, so the occupancy level is 44.3 million occupied room nights in the same period.
Most of the casino resorts are city centers in one building that require abundant staffing, especially considering that all the demand is not necessarily for overnight visitors. As such, the leisure and hospitality sector represents approximately 25% of the total number of employees in Las Vegas.
While hospitality and leisure employment is on the rise, finding staffing is still challenging.
More employees could be needed due to new hotels entering the market. This year, nearly 4,500 new hotel rooms opened, the highest amount since 2009, and a 2.5% inventory increase. The largest new hotels opened in December.
The impact of the openings has not been fully revealed due to employment data only being available through October, and hotel data available through November.
A potential example of finding staffing was the delayed opening of the 209-room Durango Station Resort, about 10 miles off the strip.
Red Rock Resorts delayed the opening of its new Durango property from Nov. 20 to Dec. 5, stating “some areas of the property weren’t ready in time to properly train staff members to provide the level of service it wanted to for guests.”
Employees were compensated for salaries and tips for the period the company had expected the property to be open, as employment retention was most likely vital to opening.
The 67-story, 3,644-room Fontainebleau Las Vegas mega-resort opened on Dec. 13 and sought to hire 6,500 employees.
Both properties hosted hiring events in September. The Durango property sought to hire 1,500 employees by opening.
