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

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Muoio worked as an event coordinator for a third-party electricity supplier and carefully choreographed the energy needs of exhibitors, presenters and participants in trade shows held in the massive hall.

“It’s a very long day and you’re standing all the time,” said Muoio, 39. “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 are rising, restaurants and clubs are packed, and workers like Muoio are working overtime to make sure everything goes smoothly for the major money-making show and related events. Last year, the 170,000 CES participants estimated that they generated $ 169 million in direct spending and a wider economic impact of $ 291.2 million, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors.

The measure, aimed at prioritizing health and safety during the Covid-19 pandemic, serves as another blow to a city already defeated by the current economic and health crisis.

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

The money is running out

The Las Vegas job market was the hardest hit by major US subway areas during the pandemic. The region is largely dependent on travel, discretionary spending, business conferences and large gatherings, but has seen those keys turned off.

In April 2020, the shutdowns led to an unemployment rate of 34% in Las Vegas. Although it has improved since then, Las Vegas still has the highest unemployment rate in large subway areas, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In November 2020, the unemployment rate in the Las Vegas subway area was 11.5%, and 128,000 people – including Muoio – lost their jobs.

After being sent in March, Muoio was finally released in August.

Since then, she says she has applied for hundreds of jobs – including roles and positions coordinating events at home in customer service or marketing – but has yet to achieve anything permanently.

Living without health insurance and awaiting a state unemployment benefit, which has been pending since August, Muoio said she was happy to earn some money to pay for a house.

“That money is slowly falling,” she said. – I finished.

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

Las Vegas bartender Brandon Geyer has been unemployed since March.

“Come March, when it first happened, I had the impression that we would be closed for a few weeks, it’s not a big deal,” he said. “It’s been another week and another week and all of a sudden, I haven’t been back to work since March.”

For nearly 24 years, the 49-year-old Geyer ran the bar at Main Street Station, a casino, brewery and hotel in Las Vegas that remains temporarily closed due to the pandemic. And while the crowds grew whenever CES came to town, Main Street Station attracted a loyal clientele, many of whom Geyer came to know over the years.

Geyer said he is grateful to be receiving unemployment benefits, that his wife still has her job and that they have some money in savings to support themselves and their two children. Local 226 of the Culinary Workers Union also contributed to the purchase of weekly food assistance and food.

But the loss of full and constant income has an effect, Geyer said. He hopes his union pressure will be put in place for Clark County, Nevada, to adopt a “Right to Return” policy, asking employers to give laid-off workers the right to return to their old jobs when business reopens. .

“We only wonder when we will return to work,” he said.

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

Easy to score

This time last year, optimism was high that 2020 – and CES 2021 – would be quite prosperous for Las Vegas, said Steve Hill, executive director of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors.

“I set [room tax dollars] records in seven of the last 10 months, “he said.” It looked like this would definitely continue. “

Hotel and resort construction projects were underway, and the city was not only scheduled to host the NFL project in April, but would also have the brilliant $ 1.94 billion Allegiant Stadium, full of fans to cheer. the NFL Raiders team recently moved.
And by January 2021, CES should be the first $ 1 billion expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center and serve as the debut for a futuristic “people on the move” project from The Boring Company. Elon Musk.
The Las Vegas Convention Center has expanded by nearly $ 1 billion, and CES 2021 is scheduled to be the first event in the newly built West Hall. Instead, the event is completely digital due to the pandemic.

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

Hotels that had charged more than $ 400 a night for rooms in CES 2020 week promoted rates between $ 25 and $ 45 this year, according to Hotels.com data from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Some hotels, including Mirage and Encore de la Wynn, even have rooms closed in the middle of the week due to low demand.

The expectation of both the visitors’ authority and the CES organizers is that the event will return to Las Vegas in 2022 and beyond. Although it will probably look a little different when he returns.

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

On Monday night, more than two dozen awnings from properties along the famous Las Vegas Strip were lit with the message: “We miss you, CES. I can’t wait to meet you in 2022 “.

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

“All bets are disabled”

The US Travel Association, citing data from research firm Tourism Economics, estimates that the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in cumulative losses of $ 500 billion for the national travel economy in March, causing an estimated impact of $ 64.4 billion. dollars for federal, state and local taxes. income.
While leisure travel is expected to fuel the recovery of travel and tourism, these trips are not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2022, said Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics during a Webinar of the Tourism Association of USA since December. It will probably take until 2024 or later for business and corporate travel to fully return, he said.

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

And until vaccinations are spread, “all bets are off,” Restrepo said.

Nevada’s lack of industry diversification is likely to hinder job recovery just as it did after the Great Recession, he said. After the 2008 recession, it took the state nine years for the state to exceed its number of jobs before the recession.

This time, Restrepo predicts that it will take at least three years for the state to reach the consistent annual growth rates observed in the major economic indicators before the pandemic. It will take even longer, he said, to return to real job levels, sales taxes, gaming revenue and conventional.

“There will be a long slogan in this routine here in southern Nevada,” he said.

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