Penn National Gaming has announced another wave of layoffs at the M Resort Spa Casino Las Vegas.
The US casino operator Penn National Gaming has announced an additional 58 permanent layoffs at the M Resort Spa Casino Las Vegas on top of the previously announced 352 layoffs.
Penn National made the announcement in a letter to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. Under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act), employers are required to provide advance warning of mass layoffs and redundancies.
58 more layoffs at M Resort
In the letter to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, which was dated 6 August, the operator said the lay odds are the “unfortunate result of Covid-19 related business circumstances that were sudden, dramatic and beyond [its] control.”
Penn added: “The impact on our business was not reasonably foreseeable until now.”
Affected employees are set to be notified on 15 August. Some employees that are represented by unions may be able to avoid being made redundant by displacing other employees. However, this will depend on their union’s bargaining agreement with Penn National Gaming.
The operator explained that the redundancies were due to the combination of the impact of casino closures in March and the “restrictive” operating conditions that were introduced when casinos were allowed to reopen.
Nevada’s casino reopening measures
Nevada casinos were permitted to reopen from 4 June, provided they complied with guidelines published by the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB).
In order to help slow the spread of the virus, casinos in the Silver State were required to limit casino occupancy limits to 50%.
Player limits were also set for table games. Blackjack tables were limited to three players, craps tables were limited to six players, roulette tables were limited to four players and poker tables were limited to four players per table.
In its letter, the operator said: “We simply could not foresee that the initial closures of our properties, that were issued by one or two states for a limited period of time, ultimately spread throughout all the states in which we operate and eventually be extended, interrupting almost all business and travel temporarily. These significant drags on our business will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
“Finally, we could not have anticipated when our properties would be allowed to reopen and how restrictive the new operating conditions would be, and the negative impact this would have on business volumes.”
More layoffs at Penn
In addition to the layoffs at M Resort, the casino operator announced one further layoff on top of the 352 it had announced at its corporate offices in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania and Las Vegas.
Last month, the operator informed the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation that it would layoff 620 employees at Tropicana Las Vegas between the date of announcement and October.
