Macau casino operator Wynn Macau Ltd became on Chinese New Year’s Eve the third of the city’s gaming licensees publicly to announce a pay rise for its staff exclusive of its senior management.
As with the two other operators already flagging pay hikes for the calendar year, for some staff it will amount to a level below the city’s 2018 inflation rate.
The Wynn Macau Ltd pay rise was backdated to February 1 and covers nearly 98 percent of the company’s current 13,700 workforce, the firm said in a press release.
Eligible workers at its Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace properties with a monthly salary of MOP16,000 (US$1,980) or below, will receive a monthly salary increase of MOP600, which the company said was equivalent to a pay rise of between 3.8 percent and 6.4 percent, depending on each person’s salary. The firm didn’t specify in its press announcement how many workers would be receiving the higher percentage increase.
In early December, a number of Macau gaming labour groups had called for a minimum pay rise in 2019 for staff in the sector amounting to a least 3 percent.
Macau’s inflation rate for 2018 – based on the composite price index issued by the city’s Statistics and Census Service in late January – was 3.01 percent, up by 1.78 percentage points – or more than double – the 1.23 percent recorded in 2017.
Wynn Macau said that its pay rise would amount to an average 2.5 percent increase for eligible – non-senior management – staff with a monthly salary above MOP16,000.
According to a Macau government survey on staffing needs and wages relating to Macau’s gaming sector covering the second quarter, the most recent data available, issued in August, the average salary – excluding bonuses – for a Macau casino dealer had increased by 2.6 percent year-on-year as of that date.
Wynn Macau Ltd mentioned in its 2019 pay hike announcement that a one-month bonus was also recently given to all employees in advance of the Chinese New Year holiday. A lunar new year bonus is common practice in the local sector.
Sands China Ltd had in mid-January been the first Macau operator to make a public statement about a 2019 pay rise – effective from March 1 – for those staff outside the senior echelons of management. It said it amounted to an increase of between 4.6 percent and 6.0 percent for workers earning up to MOP13,000.
Eligible employees earning more than MOP13,000 per month would receive an average increment of 2.5 percent, Sands China said.
In late January, Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd announced a 2019 salary increase for eligible non-management employees. It said the rise would range between 2.5 percent and 7.5 percent, and take effect from April 1. Those earning a monthly “base salary” – a figure “including tips”– that amounted to more than MOP13,000, are to receive a pay increase of 2.5 percent.
