Atlantic City Casino to Layoff 150

When I say the name Hilton some people will think about a fluffy bed in a hotel room. Others will think of a certain ice blond heiress with a scandalous reputation and a sex tape. In Atlantic City right now a lot of people are hearing the word Hilton and thinking layoffs.

That’s right, the hotel is getting ready to get rid of employees at its Atlantic City property. To be fair, the hotel is no longer owned by the Hilton family, but it is still widely thought of as the Hilton in the local area.

The hotel is currently owned by a Los Angeles-based hedge fund called Colony Capital LLC. They are getting ready to be rid of 150 workers. This news is not surprising, since it comes just days after the casino got approval for a rescue plan that is designed to keep it operational for another year.

The 150 members of the staff that got the axe did not come from one specific department. The casino’s chief operating officer, one Mr. Michael Frawley, told a reporter for the Associated Press that the cuts were made from many departments. They included both lower level workers and members of the management team. Before the layoffs the casino had roughly 2,000 people in their employ. This means that the casino is letting go of about 7.5 percent of its staff in this round of layoffs.

That being said, Mr. Frawley did express some regret about having to cut the workers, he said to the same reporter that, “It’s not a decision we ever make lightly. We’ve been looking at this for a long time.”

A rescue plan for the flagging casino was approved by the state Casino Control Commission on Wednesday. The plan allows the company to stay open for at least another year. As part of the deal Colony Capital LLC will be investing $15 million more into the casino and the lenders will be taking over two casino’s in Mississippi in order to wipe out their debt.

In addition the casino will get $9.3 million in cash when the lenders finally release the insurance proceeds that came from an August 2009 claim related to flooding. The grand total of cash going into the casino will be at minimum $24.3 million. The casino has been in search of a buyer for about two years now. Since it defaulted on its loans in 2009 many area locals have been speculating that it would simply have to close.

On Wednesday, at a meeting of the casino commission Mr. Frawley did not disclose exactly how many jobs he needed to cut exactly, those numbers only came later. He was quick to tell the AP reporter that the job losses should not impact the quality of service given to the guests of the casino. He said, “Service is value. You can’t take value away from customers. You get into a death spiral if you do that, and we won’t.”

He also hinted at a strategy that seems a bit odd for a casino, “It doesn’t take a lot of money to have a lot of fun, and that’s what we’re going to be emphasizing for our customers.”