Mandalay Bay cuts staff after Vegas shooting

Mandalay Bay cut staff last week after MGM Resorts International told investors the Las Vegas shooting would impact its bottom line in the fourth quarter.

Serena Talledo told the Las Vegas Review-Journal she lost her full-time job at the front desk Wednesday due to MGM’s financial difficulties since Oct. 1.

“I’m so scared,” she told the newspaper Friday. “They’re not even giving us two weeks, a month, nothing.”

Talledo said managers relegated her and other employees from guest services and the bell desk to a reserve list — a pool of randomly assigned shifts. Talledo said she started off three years ago on that list before earning a full-time position at the front desk. Now, she said, she’s “back where she started.”

It didn’t come as a complete surprise, however. Rumors began circulating among employees earlier this month, Talledo said. MGM’s third quarter earnings report released Wednesday only made the staff cuts official.

MGM owns more than a dozen iconic Las Vegas hotels and casinos, including Luxor, Bellagio, the Mirage and the now-infamous Mandalay Bay — where, for reasons still unclear, a retired accountant and avid gambler perpetrated the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history from a two-room suite on the hotel’s 32nd floor.

“Obviously the event of October 1 has had an impact on the fourth quarter,” MGM Chief Executive Officer Jim Murren told investors Wednesday. “The entire town did the right thing. We all took a pause in marketing out of respect for those affected initially. … Of course, our bookings declined immediately after October 1 because we were suspending our outbound marketing programs and focusing on what mattered – taking care of victims, their families, first responders, our employees and all the guests that are here.”

Murren forecasted fourth quarter earnings would decline less than 10 percent, noting October is historically one of the company’s strongest months of the year.

“We’ve worked very hard, especially over the last few years, to foster a one company culture,” he said. “This was not easy … and I’ve never been more proud of the strength of our employees, who showed selfless dedication and spirited teamwork, in the face of such unspeakable evil.”

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