Las Vegas, America’s most affected subway economy, has just suffered again

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Muoio worked as an event coordinator for an outside electricity supplier and carefully choreographed the energy needs of exhibitors, presenters and attendees at the fairs held in the huge hall.

“There are very long days and you’re standing all the time,” Muoio, 39, said. “Sometimes you don’t even have time to eat.”

During a typical January, the presence of CES in and around Las Vegas is unmistakable. Hotel prices skyrocket, restaurants and clubs are packed and workers like Muoio record overtime to make sure everything runs smoothly for the big money-making show and related events. Last year, it was estimated that the 170,000 CES attendees generated $ 169 million in direct spending and a broader economic impact of $ 291.2 million, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The measure, aimed at prioritizing safety and health during the Covid-19 pandemic, serves as once again a city that is already surrounded by the current health and economic crises.

In January 2020, the CES conference is estimated to have attracted 170,000 attendees to Las Vegas and generated $ 169 million in direct spending and a broader economic impact of $ 291.2 million. (Mark Damon / Las Vegas News Bureau)

The money is gone

The labor market in Las Vegas has been hardest hit by large U.S. metropolitan areas during the pandemic. The region is heavily dependent on travel, discretionary spending, business conferences and large meetings, but has seen these key issues turned off.

In April 2020, the shutdowns caused an unemployment rate of 34% in Las Vegas. Although it has improved since then, Las Vegas continues to have the highest unemployment rate among large metropolitan areas, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As of November 2020, the unemployment rate in the Las Vegas subway area was 11.5% and 128,000 people (including Muoio) were out of work.

After being assassinated in March, Muoio was finally fired in August.

Since then, he says he has applied to hundreds of jobs, including functions and positions of coordinating stay-at-home events in customer service or marketing, but has yet to achieve anything permanent. .

Living without health insurance and waiting for a state application for unemployment benefits pending since August, Muoio said he is lucky to have some money saved for a possible down payment on a house.

“That money is falling slowly, slowly,” he said. “I’m running out.”

Brandon Geyer faces a similar situation. He has been out of work since March.

Brandon Geyer, a Las Vegas bartender, said he has been unemployed since March.

“Come March, when this first happened, I had the impression that we were going to close for a couple of weeks, not a big deal,” he said. “Another week goes by and another week goes by and all of a sudden I haven’t been back to work since March.”

For nearly 24 years, Geyer, 49, had shops at the bar on Main Street Station, a casino, brewery and hotel in downtown Las Vegas that remains temporarily closed due to the pandemic. And while crowds increased each time CES hit the city, Main Street Station attracted a loyal clientele, many of whom Geyer knew well over the years.

Geyer said he was grateful to receive unemployment benefits, that his wife still had her job, and that they had some savings to support themselves and their two children. Culinary Workers Union Local 226 has also helped get weekly help and groceries.

But the loss of full, steady revenue is taking its toll, Geyer said. He hopes his union’s push for Clark County, Nevada to adopt a “right to return” policy that will force employers to offer laid-off workers the right to return to their former jobs of work when companies reopen.

“We just wonder when we’ll be back to work,” he said.

Boyd Gaming-owned Main Street Station is expected to reopen sometime in 2021, Keith Smith, CEO, said during the company’s most recent earnings call in October.

Strangely empty

This time last year, optimism was high because 2020 (and CES 2021) would be prosperous for Las Vegas, said Steve Hill, CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors.

“It simply came to our notice then [room tax dollars] records in seven of the previous ten months, “he said.” It looked like it would definitely go on. “

Projects to build hotels and resorts were underway, and the city not only planned to host the NFL draft in April, but would also have the brilliant $ 1.94 billion Allegiant Stadium full of fans for cheer on the newly relocated NFL Raiders team.
And by January 2021, CES would be the first event held in a nearly $ 1 billion expansion at the Las Vegas Convention Center and would serve as the debut for a futuristic “People-mover” project by The Boring Company, Elon Musk.
The Las Vegas Convention Center experienced an expansion of nearly $ 1 billion and CES 2021 would be the first event held at its newly built West Hall. Instead, the event is entirely digital due to the pandemic.

Instead, the new 1.4 million-square-foot West Hall is completely empty, Hill said.

Hotels that had been charged more than $ 400 a night for rooms during CES 2020 week have announced rates ranging from $ 25 to $ 45 this year, according to Hotels.com data tracked by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Some hotels, including the Mirage and Wynn Encore, even have rooms closed on weekdays due to low demand.

Both the visiting authority and CES organizers expect the event to return to Las Vegas in 2022 and beyond. Although it will probably look a little different when I return.

“The future of the events will likely include a digital component,” officials from the Consumer Technology Association, which hosts CES, said in a statement. “The events industry has had to innovate throughout this pandemic, change business models and adapt to our new circumstances.”

On Monday night, more than two dozen marquees on the properties of the famous Las Vegas strip were lit up with the message, “We miss you, CES. I can’t wait to welcome you in 2022. “.

And on Twitter, the CES 2021 account corresponded to the sentiment, tweeting: “You feel like home, but see you soon @Vegas.”
On Monday, more than a dozen marquees along the Las Vegas Strip were lit with the message: "We miss you, CES. I can’t wait to welcome you in 2022."

“All bets are off”

The U.S. Travel Association, citing data from research firm Tourism Economics, estimates that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused cumulative losses of $ 500 billion for the nation’s travel economy since March, causing an estimated $ 64.4 billion in federal, state and local taxes. income.
While leisure travel is expected to fuel travel and tourism recovery, those trips are not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2022, said Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics during a webinar of the United States Travel Association in December. It will likely take until 2024 or later to fully return business and corporate travel, he said.

For cities like Las Vegas to see significant economic improvement, people will need to feel comfortable traveling again, being inside again and willing to spend money, said John Restrepo, director of Las Vegas-based RCG Economics. Vegas.

And until the vaccines become widespread, “all bets are off,” Restrepo said.

Nevada’s lack of industry diversification will likely hinder job recovery in the same way it did after the Great Recession, he said. After the 2008 recession, the state took nine years to surpass its pre-recession jobs.

This time, Restrepo predicts that it will take at least three years to reach the constant annual growth rates of the main economic indicators before the pandemic arrives. It took even longer, he said, to get back to real job levels, sales taxes, gaming revenue and conventions.

“It will be a long way out of this routine here in southern Nevada,” he said.

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