Greektown Casino-Hotel in Detroit to lay off 43 union employees from Sept. 28 due to COVID-19 pandemic

A week after rival MGM Grand Detroit laid off some 1,100 employees, and Greektown Casino-Hotel now says 43 workers will be laid off due to lost revenues resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement announcing the layoffs, the company reportedly said…

“These layoffs at Greektown Casino-Hotel are the unfortunate result of COVID-19 related business circumstances that were sudden, dramatic and beyond our control.”

Displaced workers:

According to the news agency, the layoffs of the 43 union employees are permanent and will begin on Sept. 28 “or the 14 day period commencing on that date.”

At the end of July, MLIVE reported that according to a June 12, 2020, WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice, the Penn National Gaming, Inc. property would be permanently laying off 621 employees from Sept. 15, due to the pandemic’s impact on the business., which were “sudden, dramatic and beyond our control.”

At the time, the casino hotel’s Vice President and General Manager John Drake said…

“Significant drags on our business will likely continue for the foreseeable future.

“Finally, we could not have anticipated when our properties would be allowed to reopen and how restrictive the new operating conditions would be, and the negative impact this would have on business volumes.”

Closing orders:

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer‘s executive order closed all three of Detroit’s commercial casinos, including MGM Grand, Greektown, and MotorCity, on March 16, 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

It would be nearly four and a half months before they were allowed to reopen at just 15 percent capacity, a regulation that according to gambling industry experts is among the strictest COVID-19 rules in the U.S.

Tax losses:

According to an August 5 report from the Detroit Free Press, prior to the current health crisis, the city of Detroit received approximately $600,000 a day in taxes paid by the three gambling properties from gaming revenue.

And while the numbers are not yet available from the Michigan Gaming Control Board for the first full month of operations, Dave Massaron, Chief Financial Officer for the City of Detroit, said in the early August report that while it’s too early to predict how tax revenue numbers will be affected by the new operating rules, the city’s budget assumes that the casino’s initial reopening period will receive roughly $100,000 per day or $3 million per month.

However, Massaron said, “at this point it is unclear that revenues will be at that level.”

One thing is for certain, the numbers will be far from what they were last year, when all three of Detroit’s casinos set a record for adjusted gross revenue, earning $1.454 billion.

MGM downsizing:

On August 28, 2020, MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) confirmed that approximately 1,100 employees at its Detroit property would be laid off as part of its nationwide downsizing plan. The plan reportedly saw a total of 18,000 of the Las Vegas-based company’s furloughed workers laid off from Monday, Sept. 1, 2020.

Meanwhile, MotorCity Casino Hotel announced in August that it was laying off 2,554 employees at the days end on July 31, according to a WARN notice filed with the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Activity on July 27th.

MI COVID-19 stats:

In the state of Michigan, coronavirus cases are reportedly lower and staying low. Accordign to the state’s coronavirus data website, as of Monday, Sept. 7, 2020, there were a total of 118,403 COVID-19 cases (107,371 confirmed & 11,032 probably) and 6,810 deaths (6,538 confirmed & 272 probable), with the largest number of cases in Oakland County, which is part of the metropolitan Detroit area.

As of Sept. 4, 2020, the cumulative total of recovered COVID-19 cases is 80,678.