The annual report on gaming diversity from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) indicates the Keystone State continues to move towards a more representative casino workforce, but still has some work to do.
The latest report indicated that racial minorities comprised 39% of casino employees. On the gender front, men still make up 57% of the workforce in Pennsylvania. One final top-line number is that 89% of employees are Pennsylvania residents.
Racial representation back to pre-pandemic rates
Over the course of the past four years, racial representation in these PGCB reports has been relatively static. Some of this is because the first year of COVID-19 did substantially shrink the workforce and skew numbers for a year.
The good news is that racial diversity numbers are back to pre-pandemic rates. African-Americans remain the largest minority population, comprising 15% of the workforce. The Asian workforce is right behind them with 13%, while Hispanics are just 7% of employees.
There is less representation at the management level, where only 25% of workers are racial minorities. Managers are split 36% female and 64% male, which similarly are worse numbers than the entire workforce numbers.
An important note for gender representation is that this is the first year the report included a gender unspecified category, with 12 of the 13,870 employees surveyed opting for that identification.
Gender representation remains static compared to pre-pandemic numbers. In the fiscal year 18-19, the workforce was roughly 57% male and 43% female. That number has remained static throughout the pandemic, even when the workforce sank below 10,000 total employees in FY 19/20.
The state also fared very well in keeping jobs in the state despite casinos being located very close to the Ohio and New Jersey borders.
Workforce growing, but jobs still left unfilled
Pre-pandemic, there were 16,717 casino employees across the state of Pennsylvania. Since then, even though new mini-casinos have opened, the workforce still remains smaller than before COVID-19. The most recent report counted 14,829 employees, but that number is fluid when you look at hybrid and part-time workers.
One component that did stick out in the report is that, while some casinos had no problems filling all posted jobs, others really struggle. Here is a look at some examples:
- Live! Casino Philadelphia: 2,422 positions offered, 1,568 positions filled
- Parx: 905 positions offered, 352 positions filled
- Wind Creek Bethlehem: 638 positions offered, 168 positions filled
- Rivers Pittsburgh: 588 positions offered, 180 positions filled
Two notable exceptions are Live! Casino Pittsburgh, which filled 81% of the 1,000 job postings and Lady Luck Nemacolin filled 444 of 563 positions.
With the recent launch of Hollywood Casino York and Hollywood Casino Morgantown in late 2021, the hope will be that next year’s reports not only closes the gender gap but also sees the growth of the industry workforce to pre-pandemic rates.
