Las Vegas is betting on the gamblers and tourists returning. Will lost jobs come back? – The Columbian

LAS VEGAS He wore a silk shirt and kept a slight scent of cologne about him. He liked to talk. There was always someone to talk to, like the production assistant from Los Angeles who blew $1,200 on video poker. They all brought their stories to the 40-foot marble bar at the Rio hotel, and later to a less glamorous joint a few miles from the Strip.

It was a good life, and through the years, Bernard Sykes met Hollywood actresses and local characters, professional athletes including Mike Tyson, and first-time visitors to the United States. Sometimes, as customers swigged beers and sipped martinis, sharing the kind of intimacies told only to strangers, theyd slide a $100 bill across the counter as a tip.

Then, last spring, like a dust devil of bad luck, Sykes life shattered.

They let me go immediately, Sykes said, recalling the start of pandemic shutdowns that cost him his $14-an-hour job. Ive been out of work ever since.

A year and two months since the coronavirus paralyzed the nation and drove record unemployment including staggeringly high percentages among service industry employees, who make up more than a quarter of this citys workforce the U.S. is emerging from the aftershock of a pandemic crisis that dimmed blackjack tables and led to long lines at food banks.

In Las Vegas, where gambling revenue plummeted by nearly 45% last year and tens of thousands of the citys service industry employees remain out of work, casinos and restaurants returned to full capacity this week. It is, in a sense, a test of Americas ability to reclaim itself. But the contours of that comeback are not fully drawn, and many wonder whether they will return to the livelihoods they lost or be forced into another year of uncertainty.

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Las Vegas is betting on the gamblers and tourists returning. Will lost jobs come back? - The Columbian