Employees in gaming sector down 3.6 percent

The Gaming Sector had 43,975 employees, down by 3.6 percent at the end of the second quarter over the same period last year, according to results of the survey on manpower needs and wages of this sector released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
Analysed by occupations that are directly related to betting services, 18,084 were dealers, down by 5.7 percent year-on-year, 12,209 were hard and soft count clerks, cage cashiers, pit bosses, casino floor-persons, betting service operators up by 5.2 percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, 5,087 were casino and slot machine attendants, security guards, surveillance room operators down by 4.9 percent from a year earlier.
In June this year, average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) for full-time employees dropped by two percent year-on-year to 15,260 patacas. Average earnings for dealers fell by 4.8 percent over June 2008 to 13,120 percent, and that of hard and soft count clerks, cage cashiers, pit bosses, casino floor-persons, betting service operators stood at 18,600 patacas, down by 1.1 percent. The average earnings for casino and slot machine attendants, security guards, surveillance room operators, etc. registered a year-on-year increase of 7.5 percent to 10,060 percent.
At the end of June 2009, number of vacancies of the Gaming Sector decreased drastically by 52.7 percent year-on-year to 361, with 50 for dealers, 39 for hard and soft count clerks, cage cashiers, pit bosses, casino floor-persons, betting service operators and 72 casino and slot machine attendants, security guards, surveillance room operators.
In regards to recruitment prerequisites, 63.7 percent of the vacancies required working experience, while 50.7 percent required senior secondary education or higher. Besides Cantonese, other preferred language skills were Mandarin at 64.5 percent and English at 57.6 percent.