Penn National Gaming’s M Resort Spa Casino Las Vegas has announced an additional 58 permanent layoffs, on top of 352 previously announced redundancies.
The operator announced the additional layoffs in a letter to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation dated 6 August, as part of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act). This requires that employers provide advance warning of mass layoffs.
These layoffs, the operator explained, were “are the unfortunate result of [novel coronavirus (Covid-19)] related business circumstances that were sudden, dramatic and beyond [its] control”.
“The impact on our business was not reasonably foreseeable until now.”
Affected employees were set to be notified on 15 August. Some union-represented employees may be able to avoid termination by displacing another employee, depending on their union’s collective bargaining agreement with the operator.
The M Resort added that the layoffs were due to a combination of the impact of closures to limit the spread of the virus and the “restrictive” operating conditions introduced for reopening.
Under Nevada’s reopening rules, casinos must limit the number of customers in their facility to 50% of capacity and set gaming tables of three players per blackjack table, six players per craps table, four players per roulette table and four players per poker table.
“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,” the business added. “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.”
In addition, Penn announced one further layoff in addition to the 352 it had already announced at its corporate offices in Wymossing, Pennsylvania and Las Vegas.
Last month, Penn National Gaming’s Tropicana Las Vegas notified the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation of 620 layoffs to take place between the date of announcement and October.
Closures of casinos across the US had a major impact on the operator’s revenue for the second quarter of 2020, which fell 76.9% to $305.5m. The operator made a $213.9m loss for the period and an $822.5m loss for the first half of the year.