Isle of Capri Biloxi cuts jobs
Slow season, closed bridge blamed
BILOXI - About 200 Isle of Capri employees lost their jobs in a layoff that the casino’s general manager said was necessary because of seasonal slowing compounded by the U.S. 90 bridge being out.
“We still have more employees that we had prior to the storm,” said Bill Kilduff, the general manager. “But we have less employees that we had utilized during the summer.”
The casino now employees about 1,100.
About a third of those laid off were contract employees, he said. Others were full-time and part-time workers.
“Any business that’s profitable, regardless of whether it’s a casino or a restaurant or a store, has to staff to current business levels,” he said. “That’s where we are right now.”
Business typically picks up in February and March, when golfers and gamblers from the Midwest vacation here.
“We hope to hire additional team members for those months,” Kilduff said. “Our concern is if the snowbirds don’t come back, it’s going to be a long winter.”
The Isle of Capri reopened last Dec. 26 and was the second Coast casino back in business after Hurricane Katrina. Several other casinos opened over the summer.
“One of the situations that is difficult for the Isle of Capri as well as the Palace and Harrah’s (Grand Casino Biloxi), with the bridge closed, all three casinos are virtually at the end of a dead-end road,” Kilduff said. “We don’t get impulse business. People pretty much have to make a conscious effort to come to see us. There’s not a whole lot of traffic down at our end of the Point. We know that’s going to change when the Ocean Springs bridge opens.”
Longer term, the casino continues to pursue expansion plans in Biloxi, he said.
Source: Sun Herald - TOM WILEMON