ATLANTIC CITY — As the summer season winds down, the air in this beachfront resort carries the sense of foreboding that precedes a tsunami. Casino shutdowns and mass layoffs are about to hit the boardwalk, leaving thousands of people out of work and unsure where to go or what to do next.
Sarah Rivera is one of them. After more than a quarter-century spent dealing cards and taking bets on rolling dice and spinning wheels, Ms. Rivera will lose her job when the Showboat Hotel and Casino closes for good on Sunday, the first of three casino closings scheduled to happen by mid-September.
After attending a briefing on Saturday about how to start a job search and apply for unemployment insurance benefits, Ms. Rivera was bewildered. Nearly two months had passed since Showboat’s owner, Caesars Entertainment, announced the shutdown, but many longtime employees had only recently given up hope that their jobs would somehow be saved.
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“It’s horrible,” said Ms. Rivera, who is in her mid-40s. “This is not an easy thing to go through. It’s really overwhelming at times. You kind of find yourself lost, and confused.”
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Now, with Revel Casino Hotel set to close after the Labor Day weekend and Trump Plaza shutting two weeks later, it is clear that the industry that revived Atlantic City can no longer sustain it. The three casinos have warned state officials that they will be laying off more than 6,500 workers — about one-fourth of all the casino employees in the state.
The effect on a city that already had an unemployment rate of about 13 percent will be seismic, said James W. Hughes, the dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. After the pending layoffs, the number of casino jobs will have been cut in half in just eight years, about three times as fast as the state’s manufacturing industry declined, Mr. Hughes said.
“I don’t think we’ve seen a shrinkage of that magnitude in any industrial sector in New Jersey in that period of time,” he said. “It really is unprecedented.”
Finding jobs for all of those about to be displaced will be difficult, Mr. Hughes said, because “there’s not a great range of options in terms of other industries” in the area around Atlantic City. “Gaming was the engine driving the economy of that area and the engine is slowing dramatically,” he said.
At the briefing Ms. Rivera attended, she and more than 50 of her co-workers were advised to look for jobs as far as a 75-minute drive away. “I encourage you to look at where one hour and 15 minutes can take you,” said Elaine Williams, a representative of the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Unfortunately for New Jersey, a drive of that length could transport those workers to Pennsylvania and nearly to Delaware, two states where casino gambling has been on a rapid rise. Out-of-state casinos — most notably Maryland Live, which is more than 150 miles away — have been among the most eager recruiters in Atlantic City lately.
Of the eight job fairs that the state labor department set up for Showboat employees, the highest attendance by far was at the one focused on casino jobs, including those in other states, said Catherine Starghill, the department’s director of work force field services.
“Certainly we want all of these job-seekers to stay here” in New Jersey, Ms. Starghill said. “We don’t want to take away from the local economy.”
For that reason, she said, the department is emphasizing training programs “to redirect employees to some of the other opportunities.”
The need to develop new skills for other types of work will be so great, she said, that the department is drawing up plans to seek emergency federal funding. The union that represents many of the workers, Local 54 of Unite Here, is also teaming with the labor department to counsel laid-off workers next week at the Atlantic City Convention Center, Ms. Starghill said.
On the casino floors, much of the talk among the workers last weekend was about relocating. A young maintenance man at the Showboat said he would move to the east coast of Florida to help his father open a bowling alley. A young woman who deals poker games a few steps from the boardwalk said she planned to go to Charlotte, N.C., possibly to return to school.
The prevailing sentiment about the prospects for those who wanted to remain in the area was summed up by Nick Merlino, a longtime poker dealer who works part time at the Showboat: “They’re screwed,” he said.
Mr. Merlino, 73, said he doubted that most of the thousands of workers could find new jobs before their unemployment benefits run out after 26 weeks. Many of them will have to take part-time jobs and collect partial benefits for much longer than that, he predicted.
Most of the casino employees live outside Atlantic City, but the dislocation of so many workers is sure to drive up the unemployment rate in Atlantic County, which already was the highest in the state. The three closings will have an even bigger effect on the tax base of Atlantic City, said Michael P. Stinson, the city’s director of revenue and finance. At its peak a few years ago, all of the property in the city was valued at more than $20 billion, he said. By next year, that assessment may be down to $10 billion or less, and the city’s costs of borrowing are certain to rise, he said.
Ms. Rivera, who lives in Mays Landing, N.J., said she had dabbled in real estate sales while working full time at the Showboat. But that was before the financial crisis devastated the housing market in the region. Many people who might choose to relocate are still stuck with homes that are worth less than what they owe on their mortgages, she said.
Those who, like her, have worked in the casinos for decades are in for a hard transition, Ms. Rivera said. “You get accustomed to a rate of pay, a way of life. The casinos were a good way for someone like me to make a reasonable amount of money with no college degree,” she said.
Even though she said her pay had not increased in the last 10 years, she was wistful about her impending layoff and worried about her future. Unemployment benefits and severance pay will barely cover the bills for her and her ailing mother, she said. Even the severance she will receive seems like a slap in the face, she said, explaining that dealers rely on tips from gamblers for much or most of their income. But the eight weeks of severance pay she has been promised is based solely on her hourly wage of $9.30.
Peering into a future that probably will take her away from the boardwalk, she concluded: “I need to get a job now. If I can’t get a job now, I might not be able to get one in nine months.”
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