A Roll of the Dice for Jobs

In Upstate New York there is a lot of commotion over allowing casinos to be built with full Vegas style table gaming.  The law has imposed a limit to where and how many can be built, so developers are fighting over the opportunity.  Each one is crafting their pitch on how many jobs they would create and what economic impact they would have on the region. The areas proposed for these casinos have seen local groups rally to oppose them due to the problems they can bring as well.

That casinos will create jobs while they are being built and will need staff to run them is not in question, but what kind of jobs they require to operate is. Fortuitously, there was an article in the local paper, The Times Union, originally appearing in Salary.com, which explores this very concept.

The article, which you can view here, http://www.timesunion.com/jobs/salary/article/Casino-Jobs-Are-Becoming-a-Safe-Bet-5392398 , has a good overview of the casino industry and an examination of two types of jobs in Pennsylvania casinos.  These are blackjack dealer and surveillance staff. The article talks about how with only a few weeks of training people can easily apply to jobs that pay from the low to mid 30s to the 40s, and how there is a lot of possible advancement. It is a pretty good introduction to the casino industry and well worth a read. 

I have some concerns with the facts and figures discussed in the article, and their applicability to the situation in Upstate New York with the pending casinos, but we can use them for a back of the envelope thought experiment. The parallels between Pennsylvania (specifically where the casinos are, such as Allentown) and Upstate New York are pretty strong, as both are economically depressed areas struggling to come out of the deindustrialization phase.  Jobs are always welcome, but one must ask if the societal costs that come with a casino (gambling addiction, crime, etc.) are balanced by the jobs created, or would these areas be better assisted by similar type of job creators, with less baggage. Let’s examine using data from the article and data from salary.com

The two jobs in question pay between 31,000 for a casino surveillance operator to 35,000 to 40,000 for a black jack dealer as a starting wage.  Combined with health insurance and other benefit packages these sound like fairly decent jobs for those with little more than a high school degree.  But let’s look at another easy entry field, retail.  Retail stores share some commonalties with casinos.  They are both focused on encouraging people to spend money, have employees dedicated to facilitating that process (sales people and dealers), worry about theft, and have higher paying positions as you advance in the industry.  The retail industry also does not require more than a high school degree for most entry level positions.

Looking at salary.com's own numbers for the Albany area illustrates that some of the potential jobs created by the casino, could have been created by a retail company as well.  For surveillance, which the article lists at $31,000, you can draw an easy comparison to a store detective, which the median salary and bonus is about $31,000.  While this is median versus starting salary, the societal ills attached to the gambling industry might outweigh the small differences in salary.  Source here: http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/

For black jack dealers it s a little bit more of a stretch in terms of skills but a comparable function is a retail store customer service representative (both interact with the customer and facilitate the transfer of funds).  Here the median salary in the Albany area is lower than the mid 30's to 40,000 range cited in the article.  The median salary and bonus is bout 33,500, which would indicate that the casinos are bringing in better jobs in this case, as even the starting salary is higher then the median salary.  Source here: http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/

Choosing to utilize casinos as part of an economic development strategy has been a tough choice all over the country.  While they do create many jobs and some of them quite high paying, (especially as you enter upper management) the same could be said for other industries that bring less social costs like retail.  What is a good sign is that many of the proposed casinos in the Upstate area are planning on being more resort than casino in many cases, with features like indoor water parks and luxury golf courses.  It still remains to be seen what jobs are created, but hopefully our business and political leaders will make every effort to ensure the economic benefits are enhanced and the societal ills are mitigated.

Posted in: gambling,hourly wage,upstate new York