As a result of last November’s election, there will be one
or two casinos, almost certainly as parts of large resorts, opening in the
Catskills later this decade. What effect
could they have on jobs and joblessness in the New York counties of Sullivan,
Ulster, and Orange, if they are built in those locations?
Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases county
employment and unemployment data, which is not seasonally adjusted. The most recent month available is February, typically
a neutral month for employment. It shows
the following for the three counties:
As you can see, Sullivan is not only the smallest of the
three, but has the highest unemployment rate.
If there were one casino resort built, how might the numbers
look? We can use the following
assumptions:
- The number of jobs created at the resort, which would include a hotel as well as a large casino and many other amenities, would be the industry standard of one position per hotel guest room.
- The number of guest rooms would be 1,110, matching the EPR Properties proposal for a resort on the site of the Concord Resort Hotel in Kiamesha Lake.
- Jobs elsewhere in the county would break even, with existing business decline offset by new opportunities created.
- 25% of resort jobs would be filled by new arrivals moving into the county.
- 75% of resort jobs would be filled by county residents, including new arrivals.
- All jobs formerly held by resort employees would be backfilled by otherwise unemployed people living in the county.
- Each new arrival would bring in one other adult, half of whom would join the labor force.
When we implement all of these, we get the following for
each possible county, also based on February 2014 data:
As you can see, the effects differ. Sullivan, if such a casino were located
there, might have a decrease in unemployment from 9.2% to 7.8%, while it would
mean less to the more populous Ulster and Orange.
What happens if any of the counties above were to get two
such resorts? Using the same assumptions
as before, we get this:
The results here are even more dramatic. If two large casino resorts were put in
Sullivan County, and the suppositions above proved accurate, unemployment there
would drop almost 30%, whereas Orange, if that county were chosen to get two,
would see their jobless rate improve less than 10%.
We can, of course, question the above assumptions. They could, however, prove more positive as
well as more negative, as resort visitors could want more goods and services
than expected from other providers, and temporary construction jobs, not
considered above, could prove significant.
In all, while we can expect casino resorts to be greatly beneficial for
jobs wherever they are built, the county they would help most would be Sullivan. Accordingly, the committee working to get not
only one but two there is truly working to better it.