More casino workers

2014/8/26

From：Macau Business Daily

When it comes to manpower, the gaming sector wins hands down. Its workforce increased 3.5 percent to just over 55,500 in the 2Q. Monthly wages averaged MOP20,160 excluding bonuses and allowances. But other professions are catching up.

The number of employees working in the gaming sector increased 3.5 percent year-on-year to 57,550 from roughly 55,556, according to data released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service Bureau (DSEC). Of these 57,500 workers, roughly 44.8 percent – or 25,783 – are dealers.
Excluding bonuses and allowances, in the gaming sector full-time employees in June were paid an average of 20,160 patacas, up by 6.7 percent year-on-year. The average earnings for dealers is 17,530 patacas per month.
From 2015 onwards, as the second tranche of new casinos opens on the Cotai Strip, the manpower needs of the gaming sector are expected to increase steeply. In the second quarter of the year, however, the number of vacancies in this sector dropped 62 percent year-on-year to 1,529. This notwithstanding, the vacant posts for dealers fell more significantly by 319 in the second quarter of the year.
In terms of language skills, besides Cantonese, knowledge of Mandarin and English is required at 85.5 percent and 72.1 percent, respectively, for the vacancies in this sector.
In addition, the gaming industry had the largest share of participants in vocational training. Of the 36,568 participants that attended training courses in the second quarter, 17,328 (47.4 percent) were employed by the sector.

Transport, communications pay better

The survey on manpower needs and wages also revealed that excluding the gaming sector, the best paid workers are in the transport, storage and communications sector. At the end of June, the average earnings in this sector reached 19,200 patacas per month, an increase of 11.6 percent year-on-year from 17,210 patacas in June 2013. In this sector, telephone, paging and hotline service operators had an increase of 60.4 percent year-on-year from 11,100 patacas in June last year to 17,800 patacas.
The second best paid sector is public sewage and refuse disposal activities (14,780 patacas) followed by the wholesale and retail trade (11,800 patacas) and security activities (9,770 patacas).
Although the security activities sector is the lowest paying, in percentage terms it registered the largest increase in the second quarter. The number of employees in the sector increased 23.7 percent year-on-year from 5,329 to 6,592.
The wholesale and retail trade posted the second largest expansion (14.2 percent) engaging 48,717 persons in the second quarter, while last year it engaged 42,643 people. The retail trade alone grew 15 percent year-on-year, from 26,840 workers in June 2013 to 30,859 workers last June. As for the wholesale trade it employs 14,188 persons, while in the year before it employed 12,709, an increase of 11.6 percent year-on-year.
Despite being one of the best paying sectors, the public sewage and refuse disposal activities sector was the only one to lose workers. Nine persons withdrew from this sector, which meant a decrease of 1.2 percent from 732 to 723.

Vacancy rate increases in all sectors

In the second quarter of the year, vacancy rates increased in all sectors that were surveyed except for transport, storage and communications, which remained unchanged. The largest increase was registered in public sewage and refuse disposal with a rise of 9.4 percentage points year-on-year to 12.8 percent.
This notwithstanding, security activities have the largest vacancy rate with 13 percent. However, and while the wholesale and retail trade sector registered a vacancy rate of 12.8 percent, the sub-sector of the wholesale trade alone reached 13.3 percent in terms of vacancies.
The security activities sector recorded a turnover of 7 percent of employees, followed by the wholesale and retail trade (6.3 percent) and transport, storage and communications (6.2 percent). The retail trade alone registered a 7.2 percent turnover rate, while the sub-sector of the wholesale trade recorded a 4.8 percent rate.

Copyright@Macau Business Daily