Two properties on the Las Vegas strip, Circus Circus Hotel & Casino and Tropicana Las Vegas, have notified the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation of 252 and 620 layoffs respectively, expected to take place between now and October.
As companies with over 100 employees, both must comply with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires them to provide advance warning of mass layoffs.
On 30 June, Phil Ruffin-owned Circus Circus informed the city’s mayor, the Clark County Commission chairperson, and the Employment Security Division of the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, that from September 1, 2020, the company will permanently terminate the roles of 252 employees.
Following the World Health Organisation’s pandemic announcement and the US entering a state of national emergency in March, Circus Circus commenced furloughs, permanent terminations and reductions in hours for 2,074 employees on March 17.
The letter, signed by director of human resources Laura E. Moreno, was sent as a precursor to a WARN Act-required communication, with the intention of alerting interested parties to the upcoming terminations.
Meanwhile, the Penn National Gaming-operated Tropicana Las Vegas supplied the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation with a WARN Act Notice of Layoff on July 3.
The notice informs that commencing from October 15, 620 employees will be permanently laid off. It refers to the Covid-19 pandemic as “circumstances that were sudden, dramatic and beyond our control”, and underlines that the company could not readily foresee the terminations at the beginning of the pandemic.
That the quarantine and closure of venues spread from an initial one or two states, to all the states in which Penn operates, and an inability to know when properties would be permitted to reopen, are cited as reasons for which the company could not foresee the terminations.
Both companies have made information relating to the layoffs available to Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. The information includes the anticipated schedule for implementing layoffs, the job titles of affected positions, the number of affected employees in each job classification, the name of each union representing affected employees and the name and address of the chief elected officer of each union.