Macau casino operator Wynn Macau Ltd announced on Thursday a 5-percent pay rise – backdated to March 1 – for most of its current 8,100 workforce.
The pay rise covers nearly 98 percent of those workers with the exception of senior management, the company said in a press statement.
The pay rise is for staff not only at its Wynn Macau resort but those already hired to work on the opening of the US$4.1-billion Wynn Palace resort on Cotai. The property is expected to launch “in the first half of 2016” according to the firm’s recent filings.
In January Wynn Macau paid a guaranteed annual bonus to non-senior management equating to two months of salary. The casino operator said on Thursday that its bonus programme will continue into 2017.
In March last year Wynn Macau announced it would offer 1,000 shares of stock – with certain conditions – to each of its then 7,500 employees outside the senior executive bracket.
Steve Wynn, chairman and chief executive of Wynn Macau, said in a statement on the latest pay increment: “This increase is in addition to the 1,000 shares we granted to each of our employees, which now totals 8.3 million shares given since July 2014. These shares, including their annual dividends, represent an additional 10 percent increase in pay. We believe that employee ownership in our company is as essential to our future success as it is to our employees’ long-term well-being.”
Morgan Stanley Research Asia Pacific said in a note on Monday that staff costs for the new Cotai casino resorts are likely to represent 50 percent to 60 percent of total fixed costs excluding depreciation and amortisation, based on 7,000 workers per resort and US$3,000 all-in costs per staff member per month. Only Macau residents can be casino dealers, and Macau’s unemployment rate in the November to January period was only 1.7 percent according to government data, helping to intensify the competition among the casino operators to hire and retain local workers.
MGM China Holdings Ltd – operator of MGM Macau and currently constructing the US$3-billion MGM Cotai resort – last week announced staff pay rises for 2015 equivalent in some cases to a percentage above the city’s 6 percent rate of annual inflation for 2014.
Daiwa Securities Group Inc analysts Jamie Soo and Adrian Chan said in a note on Thursday that at Macau market rival Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd, labour costs increased 36 percent year-on-year in the second half of 2014, “driven by an increase in head count and approximately 22 percent increase in compensation”.
(Updated Friday Mar 20, 4.00pm)
