On a Saturday afternoon in early February, Ng Wai-lok felt very nervous when he could not find a parking space outside the Macau Tower, a convention and entertainment centre.
As well as worrying about what to do with his car, he also felt anxious about the large number of people all apparently going to the same event a recruitment fair hosted by Melco Crown Entertainment, one of Macao’s six casino operators.
When I saw so many cars, I knew that there would be lots of people, lots of competition for jobs, ” says Mr Ng, 22, who hopes to become a card dealer.
Mr Ng is one of the 9,000 people who attended the two-day job fair, which offered 5,000 positions at the City of Dreams, Melco Crown’s latest casino, scheduled to open in the first half of this year. The large number of attendees is a vivid reminder of the increasing difficulty of finding jobs in the enclave.
Just a few years ago, after Macao liberalised its gambling sector and allowed foreign gaming companies, including Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts, to set up casinos, the territory became a typical employee-driven job market.
Workers would leave to join another company for just a few hundred more Macanese patacas every month and the unemployment rate dropped from 6.3 per cent in 2002 to 2.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2008, although it rose to 3.3 per cent in the period from October to December.
Salaries in Macao jumped more than 50 per cent from a median of about 5,100 patacas ($640) in the third quarter of 2004 to 8,000 patacas in the third quarter of 2008, led by rises in the construction and gaming sectors.
Finding employees became the biggest headache for companies across all industries.
Whenever company executives got together, they talked about hiring, ” says Jennifer Liao, general manager at MacauHR, a recruitment agency.
But, companies began to lay off staff last year under the combined effects of the spreading global financial crisis and restrictions on the ease with which citizens in neighbouring Guangdong province could travel to Macao aimed at taming explosive growth in the gaming industry.
About 11,000 construction workers lost their jobs in November, after the Las Vegas Sands stopped work at some of its sites.
A month later, Melco Crown asked its 3,200 staff at Crown Macau, its casino hotel, to take two or three days unpaid leave each month and offered them an option to take sabbatical leave. Galaxy Entertainment, Melco Crown’s rival, announced pay cuts in January.
The financial tsunami is hitting every economy. Its influence on the Macao recruitment market is beginning to show,” says the labour affairs bureau.
We would not rule out the possibility that some companies may have to cut pay or jobs.”
The falling demand for staff is also affecting the 92,000 foreigners working in the former Portuguese colony.
Since growth in Macao speeded up in the past few years, Macao has become a prime destination for foreigners looking for jobs. More than half of its overseas workers are from China, who are mainly employed in the construction sector.
The Philippines and Hong Kong also provide more than 10,000 foreign workers each.
Their situation has been made difficult by growing pressure to protect jobs for local people. The government has made it clear that it will reduce the number of foreign casino workers by various measures, such as not renewing their work permits. Operators are also keen to hire more locals.
With deep roots in Macao, we are committed to having more than 50 per cent of core managerial positions in our group companies ... held by locals within the next three years,” says Akiko Takahashi, chief human resources officer at Melco Crown.
While this looks bad for job seekers, human resources consultants say that the slowdown could be good for Macao, because it gives the territory some breathing space.
Ms Liao says: “Previously, growth was too fast and the available workforce simply could not meet demand. This cooling-off period is a good opportunity for businesses and government to implement the necessary training schemes and legislation – and this looks to be happening.
Companies can start looking at their strategies for improving their infrastructures to support this growth.
The slowing of the gaming industry, meanwhile, is making it easier for employers in other sectors to hire staff.
China Construction Bank (Asia), the Hong Kong and Macao arm of one of the country’s largest lenders, plans to hire between 20 and 24 people when it opens two branches in Macao this year.
The bank, which has six outlets in the territory employing more than 100 staff, says it expects to have more candidates to select from, as a result of the the economic situation.
In the past, it was very difficult to hire people in particular frontline staff.
We expect more applications this year, says Charles Ma, president and chief executive at CCB (Asia). (Credit: Financial Times)
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