Competition for Asian hires increases as new Asian-themed casinos being built

Casino executives on the Las Vegas Strip are bracing for competition with the opening of two new Asian-themed hotels, which they worry will make the fight for Asian-language speaking workers even more challenging.

With Lucky Dragon set to open later this year and the Genting Group’s Resorts World Las Vegas slated for 2019, executives acknowledge that Asian employees, particularly those who speak Mandarin, will have many more options.

“We are always in competition, and you routinely find that people are moving from property to property, whether Asian or not,” said MGM vice president of recruitment Gail Carmona. “But I do think that as Genting opens, we are definitely going to potentially face a talent drain.”

Demand for Asian employees, especially those who speak Asian languages, has surged recently as Chinese high rollers increasingly form the backbone of the casino industry.

Asians make up more than 28 percent of the 36,500 gaming employees on the Las Vegas Strip, despite forming less than 7 percent of the city’s population of 594,000, according to data from the Nevada Gaming Control Board and the United States Census.

By comparison, Las Vegas has more than 197,000 Hispanic residents, but fewer than 5,500 of the Strip’s gaming employees are of Hispanic descent.

Casinos target Asian or Asian-language speaking hires, knowing that high rollers want people who look and sound like them, and who understand the nuances of their culture.

They advertise job openings in Chinese language newspapers, network with Asian sororities and fraternities at local universities, and monitor social media, said Cherece Vina, regional director of talent for Caesars. Many new recruits are found through word-of-mouth.

Kent Woo, the executive director of the California-based NICOS Chinese Health Coalition who has been critical of casinos’ efforts to lure Asian gamblers, said his organization has not extensively studied how the recruitment of Asian workers plays into those efforts. But he acknowledged that it is one of several key strategies casinos employ.

And as Lucky Dragon and Genting enter the scene, the challenge for other casinos will be to find creative ways to market their casinos to potential Asian employees, says Albert Lee, vice president of domestic Asian marketing at Caesars. One tool might be career development possibilities: Lee himself moved up through the ranks of Asian marketing, serving as an executive host before becoming a vice president.

Caesars vice president of international marketing Bruce Bommarito said finding candidates for lower-level positions that require the most customer interaction are among the most challenging.

“Getting that person who wants to be a desk clerk or receptionist, that speaks the language and may be of age and is qualified to deal cards, is hard,” he said.

But at the end of the day, Lee said finding an Asian-language candidate is just like finding any other candidate.

“Obviously there’s more than just being able to speak the language — they have to be able to take care of people, have the right personalities, the right interactions,” Lee said. “Just like hiring anybody else, they need to have the right skill set.”