Two large resorts with foreigner-only casinos on South Korea’s Jeju Island told GGRAsia they are struggling to increase their operations post-COVID-19 because of limited opportunities to recruit new employees. At one of the resorts, there was a challenge to lure back employees who left during the pandemic.

Previous or new employees will be welcomed because the number of foreigners who visited the vacation island (pictured) from March 1 to 30 jumped year-on-year to 28,813. According to data from the Jeju Tourism Organization, the total number of people in March last year was 3,258, which is significantly lower than the very low level.

In response to GGRAsia’s inquiry, an official at Jeju Shinhwa World Resort Casino said this is because it is common for young job seekers to look for opportunities in mainland Korea, Greater Seoul, and even foreign countries.

The official also noted that casinos are interested in rehiring employees who may have left during the pandemic, but the representative acknowledged that the Jeju casino industry is no longer the highest-paid sector compared to other jobs. Jeju Xinhua World is operated by Hong Kong-listed Xinhua World Inc.

The resort’s representative also added that after hiring was frozen during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult in the short term to find someone who could speak fluent English to help overseas guests and hire a mid-level manager. In terms of wage competitiveness, Jeju casinos expected Chinese visitors to rebound to pre-pandemic levels in order to generate the income needed to boost employee pay rates.

In its full-year results filed on Thursday, Xinhua World Inc said segment revenue from its integrated resort business in 2022 was about HK$946.2 million ($120.5 million), up 10.5% from about HK$856.4 million a year earlier.

An official from Lotte Tourism Development, a promoter of Jeju Dream Tower Resort and Casino, told GGRAsia that it had tried to recruit nearly 500 resort employees, including 100 of them, to be assigned to the gaming business since the end of March, but also struggled to hire them.

In mid-March, Lotte Tourism Development announced that Jeju Dream Tower’s net casino sales amounted to nearly 43.68 billion won ($33.7 million) for all of 2022. This is an increase of 107.7 percent from the nearly 21.03 billion won recorded in 2021.

There are eight foreigner-only casinos in Jeju.

According to a recent report by the Korean media Jeju Daily, many Jeju casino employees quit their jobs or moved to other industries during the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some employees are now reluctant to return to the Jeju casino sector, the media said.

BY: 파워볼사이트