Atlantic City’s casinos will be hiring 2,400 employees this summer—including 600 full-time positions—according to a survey taken by the New Jersey Casino Commission.
Matt Levinson, chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, announced a survey of the city’s eight casinos that disclosed the job openings. The 2,400 jobs is up significantly from 2015 when a similar survey found the casinos would hire 1,400 people for the summer.
“Casinos are hiring, and not just for the summer,” Levinson said in a statement. “The number of full- and part-time openings is a clear indication that our existing casinos are stabilizing and are looking to grow their business. More jobs mean more paychecks for the people in this area that are going to help stabilize our overall economy. There are plenty of very talented people in the region who could use those jobs.”
The news follows strong signs that the casinos monthly gaming revenue is stabilizing after four casino shut down in 2014. Those closings cost the city more than 8,000 jobs.
Levinson’s said 1,260 of the new jobs will be seasonal ones, mostly during the summer months when casinos are at their busiest, noting “this is still a very seasonal industry.” Levinson said 900 of the jobs will be permanent and 600 of those are full-time positions.
As of the end of March, there were 23,562 people employed in Atlantic City’s casinos, according to the Associated Press.
The job news also comes as the resort is preparing for a busy summer of conventions, beach concerts and events.
Tourism officials are expecting the scheduled events to help boost the city despite the negative publicity surrounding the city government’s collapsing finances. Though the city’s government is facing a possible bankruptcy, it does not finance any of the big events scheduled for the summer and organizers intend to send a message that from a tourist standpoint, the city will open for business as usual.
Big events scheduled for the summer include:
A National Sports Collectors’ Convention, which will be held at the Atlantic City Convention Center from Aug. 3 to 7,and should bring 30,000 attendees. That is more convention attendees than every convention booked in the city last summer by Meet AC, which promotes the city’s convention center said Jim Wood, the group’s CEO.
Wood told the Press of Atlantic City that he expects 58,600 total convention attendance for shows booked throughout the summer, compared with 18,721 attendees during the same period in 2015.
“The total economic impact for the Atlantic City Convention Center is $12.3 million. What we’re seeing is significant growth in hotel bookings,” Wood said.
The city has also booked two of what it hopes will be six beach concerts for the summer drawing better than 30,000 attendees each,
Live Nation Philadelphia confirmed two such concerts in Atlantic City—Toby Keith on July 23 and Florida Georgia Line on Sept. 3—with promises of more.
“The shows are a part of a larger announcement for the upcoming 2016 Atlantic City beach summer concert series,” Rachel Spivak, public relations contact for Live Nation Philadelphia, told The Press.
In March, the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority approved a three-year, $6 million agreement with Live Nation to bring more beach concerts to Atlantic City. The deal asked Live Nation to bring at least six beach concerts, or other events that attract at least 30,000 attendees, to the resort city for the next three summers, according to the Press.
The Atlantic City Airshow will also bring back the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds on Aug. 17, the paper reported.
Joe Kelly, president of the Greater Atlantic City Chamber, said the chamber will actively market a message this summer that the city is open for business.
“We’re putting some kind of message out there locally and through social media. This place, from a business standpoint, is doing well and getting better and we’re going to have a great summer,” he told the Press.
