The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released survey results of Manpower Needs and Wages of the Gaming Sector for the fourth quarter of 2017. Survey coverage excludes junket promoters and junket associates.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2017, number of full-time employees in the Gaming Sector increased by 1.5% year-on-year to 56,634, of which the number of dealers rose by 1.7% to 24,453.

In December 2017, average earnings (excluding bonuses) of full-time employees in the Gaming Sector were MOP22,940, up by 4.3% year-on-year. Average earnings of dealers increased by 5.4% to MOP19,850.

Job vacancies totalled 460 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017, down by 95 year-on-year. Most of the vacancies (49.6%) were for clerks and 100 of them were for dealers.

In terms of recruitment prerequisites, 38.7% required work experience while 87.4% required senior secondary education or lower; requirement for knowledge of Mandarin and English accounted for 90.0% and 31.1% respectively.

In the fourth quarter of 2017, a total of 1,518 new employees were hired, surging by 129.3% from 662 in the same quarter of 2016. Furthermore, the employee recruitment rate (2.7%) went up by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year, while the job vacancy rate (0.8%) fell by 0.2 percentage points. These indicators suggested that some of the vacancies in the Gaming Sector had already been filled.

As regards vocational training, the Gaming sector had 103,487 participants attending training courses provided by the enterprise (including courses organised by the enterprise or in conjunction with other institutions, and those sponsored by the enterprise), a substantial year-on-year increase of 98.9%. Most participants attended courses in Business & Administration (58.1%), followed by Gaming & Entertainment Services (16.9%). The majority of courses were organised by the gaming enterprises, and the number of participants accounted for 99.5% of the total.