Slowdown in demand for gaming sector manpower

Only 376 employees were hired in the gaming sector in the fourth quarter of 2015, an 80.9 per cent decline from the 1,968 of the same period in 2014 and 1,586 less than in the second quarter of last year, according to a survey released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service. Employee turnover rate was 1.8 per cent, which was 0.8 percentage points lower than the same quarter of last year, with 32.8 per cent fewer employees – 1,016 in the fourth quarter of 2015 – leaving employment as compared to 1,512 the same quarter of the previous year.
Job vacancies were also down 45.1 per cent – to 379 – in the last quarter of 2015, at 462, as compared to 507 in the second quarter, which also lost 1,022 as compared to the second quarter of 2014. Of the fourth quarter vacancies, 219 were clerical, with none for dealers, as compared to 515 in the same period of 2014, when 180 dealers were sought. There were 24,619 dealers in the fourth quarter of 2015, a 4.4 per cent drop year-on-year despite a 4.3 per cent wage rise year on year, earning them an average MOP18,780 in December 2015, only MOP200 more than in June of the same year.
Of the vacancies in the fourth quarter of 2015, some 88.7 per cent required knowledge of Mandarin, while 55.8 per cent required knowledge of English, down 6.6 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively. Some 70.6 per cent of the vacancies in the fourth quarter required senior secondary education or higher, a 12.8 per cent increase compared to the second quarter of 2015.
Full-time employees in the fourth quarter of 2015 totalled 56,217 – a decrease of 1,540 year-on-year and 1,204 since June of the same year. Of the fourth quarter full-time employees, shift workers in the gaming sector accounted for 92.6 per cent of the total. Average wages rose 4.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2015 for men, and 4.4 per cent for women as compared to the same period in 2014.
Managerial non-residents earn more
Earnings for residents in directorial and managerial positions averaged MOP48,470 in December of 2015, a 4 per cent increase from the same month of the previous year. Non-residents in the same positions gained an average earnings boost of 13.8 per cent for the same month – to MOP82,880 or 41.5 per cent higher than residents. The second highest average earnings in the sector for December 2015 were for technicians and associate professionals, at an average of MOP25,740, a 5 per cent increase on the previous year, as compared to the 7.8 per cent increase in non-resident salaries the previous December, earning them on average MOP36,220 in the final month of 2015.
With the city undergoing a gaming downturn, monthly gross gaming revenue continued to fall throughout 2015, from MOP 23.7 billion in January to MOP18.3 billion in December, a 17.4 per cent and 21.2 per cent drop, respectively. Accumulated gross revenue for 2015 was MOP230 billion – down 34.3 per cent compared to 2014. In the first month of 2016, the downward trend continued, with a 21.4 per cent drop compared to the previous year, at MOP 18.6 billion.