Jobs Americans won’t do?
Just as Atlantic City, NJ casinos are tanking with thousands expected to be unemployed, across the river in Pennsylvania refugees are getting jobs paying $22 to $28 an hour. I know that area of Southern NJ and this is going to have a far reaching impact on the local economy. Some of those employees might want to head to Pennsylvania. But….
From AP at Go Erie:
The gambling industry in western Pennsylvania is betting on refugee immigrants. And casinos say it’s paying off.
At Presque Isle Downs & Casino, 40 percent of the men and women in the pits flipping cards and counting chips got their initial training in a room barely larger than a closet in the rear of a former Methodist church owned by Multicultural Community Resource Center, an Erie nonprofit that helps resettled refugees find jobs, housing and schools.
[….]
Nearly 200 of the 1,800 workers at Rivers Casino on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, including those in the finance department and blackjack dealers, arrived as documented immigrants in the State Department’s refugee resettlement program. That’s twice the rate of foreign-born employment for the rest of Allegheny County, and it’s growing as charities help the state-regulated gambling parlor place qualified, law-abiding immigrants in service jobs that pay $22 to $28 an hour, depending on tips.
Now check this out!
That last line above (in red) has been edited because another version of the same article (this one at the Washington Times) says this:
Nearly 200 of the 1,800 workers at Rivers Casino on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, from the finance department to blackjack dealers, arrived as documented immigrants in the State Department’s refugee resettlement program. That’s twice the rate of foreign-born employment for the rest of Allegheny County, and it’s growing as charities – including the Catholic Diocese, Jewish Family and Children’s Services and the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council – help the state-regulated gambling parlor place qualified, law-abiding immigrants in service jobs that pay $22 to $28 an hour, depending on tips.
So why did Go Erie take out the names of the contractors resettling refugees in the area?
For more information, see our July post here—Pittsburgh at “tipping point!” For more on how we came to take 70,000 plus Bhutanese refugees in the last few years, type ‘Bhutanese Sauerbrey’ into our search window.