Gibraltar gaming sector sheds jobs

Gibraltar, home to many of the online gambling industry’s major companies, is experiencing a tightening employment market with 100 jobs lost to date, reports the Gibraltar Panorama this week. Among companies that have reduced staff are Party Gaming and Mansion group, the newspaper reports.
Employment numbers remained stable between October 2007 and August 2008, but figures for last month show a reduction from 1803 to 1699.
The decline does not come as a complete surprise; in September last year there were reports that PartyGaming was looking at making about 100 staff redundant. The Party Gaming workforce is now down to 227 from 317 in August last year and 335 the previous year.
Mansion also disclosed well in advance that it may be shedding IT jobs, although it said that this may be balanced by the hiring of more sales and marketing specialists. The current employee numbers at Mansion last month show that its employee roster has shrunk from 149 to 93.
Panorama reports that other local companies on a downhill trend job-wise include Victor Chandler, 32Red.com, 888.com and Bwin. Chandler staffing dropped from 307 to 262 last year, although it has picked up slightly and stood at 275 in February 2009. Online casino company 32Red.com staffing levels declined from 117 to 45 last month, whilst Bwin dropped from 200 last year to 177 last month. 888 Holdings showed a slight reducing trend over the period.
Panorama also singles out online casino group Carmen Media for attention, reporting that its staff has been reduced from 25 to 14. Taking an overall look at the situation, the newspaper concludes that the number of Gibraltarians employed in online gambling has gone down from 360 in October 2007 to 284 in August 2008 and has now dropped to 261 – representing a loss of 100 jobs over the period.
Apparently bucking the downward trend, Stan James group had 194 employees locally in October 2007, which increased to 237 in August 2008 and stood at 253 last month.

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