The amount of gaming tax collected by the Macau SAR government fell 12.2% year-on-year to MOP$17.23 billion in January and February combined, according to latest data from the Financial Services Bureau.
January’s direct tax revenue was MOP$8.84 million, down 13.5% year-on-year after GGR declined 11.3% to MOP$22.1 billion in January. February’s gaming tax revenue is listed at MOP$8.39 billion despite GGR plummeting 87.8% to MOP$3.1 billion due to the impact of COVID-19 and the 15-day closure of casinos. The government has since stated it has no plans to cut Macau’s gaming taxes.
The Statistics and Census Service also revealed on Monday that the average earnings of full-time employees in the gaming sector was MOP$24,640 in December 2019, up 3.8% compared with December 2018. The number of full-time employees in the gaming sector increased by 1.7% to 58,225, with the number of dealers rising 3% to 25,459.
However, in the fourth quarter of 2019, the total number of new hired employees in the gaming sector fell 25.5% year-on-year to 1,294.
The decline was due to a slowdown in demand for manpower in the gaming industry after the job vacancy rate dropped by 1.5 percentage points, with the employee recruitment rate down by 0.8 percentage points to 2.2%.
