Unemployment in the casino hotbed of Macau has dropped to its lowest level since records began. According to the Statistics and Census Service, the rate dropped to 2.6% between March and May and that was down 0.1% from the lowest rate seen since the handover last century. Who should Macau thank for this though? Well look no further than the doors of the Galaxy Macau. The enclave’s newest casino created 3,300 new jobs and swelled the employed population to around 328,000.
New projects are constantly being approved on the enclave, especially new developments on the Cotai strip. Although, there are worries that the local labor market will not be able to cope with the increased demand. Henry Lei, the programme coordinator and assistant professor of Economics at the University of Macau, told Macau Daily Times he believed, “the local labour market may not be able to supply,” the required number of workers, “nor at a ‘reasonable’ wage”.
There are calls in Macau for the enclave’s telecommunications market to be liberalized. Macaubusiness.com reports that the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Lau Si Lo, commented that it “is considered a must,” for the market to be liberalized. He added that this is “a promising way to bring in new technologies and service innovations to people at an affordable price,” and that 2012 “will be a year of significance, as the telecommunication market will be fully liberalized in Macau.”
Liberalization will be good news for online gaming firms looking at the mobile sector, as the usage of mobile devices will likely become more widespread due to the increased competition in the sector. It could also mean that Internet services improve and that one part of their oft-criticized infrastructure begins to drag itself out of the dirt.
