When it comes to casinos, good news is in short supply.
So it should be celebrated in the rare situations you get it.
Enter Monarch Casino and Resort.
As it did in July, the casino in Black Hawk is once again on the lookout for hundreds of new employees.
Hiring phase is welcome news
And this hiring phase comes at just the right moment.
Colorado and the country is back in the thralls of another spike of COVID-19. As a result, Gov. Jared Polis and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) have issued new mandates that follow a color scheme based on levels of severity.
What does that mean for casinos in Colorado?
It was announced last week that Gilpin County is in Level Orange, or High Risk. That means casinos in Black Hawk and Central City are once again without table games.
Casinos will also have to limit capacity to 100 people and alcohol cannot be sold past 11 p.m.
More restrictions will go into place at 5 p.m. today — casinos will have to limit capacity from the current level of 50% to 25%.
The fact that Monarch is able to hire hundreds of people right now is incredible.
Monarch career fair
For those interested, there is a career fair today at the casino and goes until 9 p.m.
As David Farahi, the Monarch COO, said to PlayColorado:
“You know, it’s jobs for all Coloradans. And we have people who join our team from up to an hour plus away from the property. So where a lot of employers are laying people off, we’re excited that we’re able to offer career opportunities.”
Farahi adds that he and Monarch are very specific about using the “career” as opposed to a job.
“Because many, many, many people have built careers with this company and started at front-line level positions. (They) have used our tuition reimbursement program to get their educations. Not only undergraduate degrees but graduate degrees, and moved up from front-line positions like busboy and valet up to management positions running departments. We’ve had servers get their degree in accounting and go into the accounting department. We have had housekeepers do that same thing, actually, go from housekeeping into accounting. We’ve had a security officer who became the manager of a completely different department. So we really value helping our team build careers. And that’s really what’s so exciting about the opportunity that we have out there where we’re looking to hire a couple hundred people. There are a lot of people looking for work, and we’re up in the mountains trying to help people launch their careers.”
Monarch grand opening
The good news doesn’t stop for Monarch, either.
Last week, the casino opened the first phase of its new resort.
That includes an expanded gaming floor, conference space, and three brand new restaurants.
Hotel rooms will become available to the public on Wednesday.
As Farahi said:
“Two things: It is an exercise in agility. We announced that we were going to open on the 19th on the 16th, so we announced it three days before we opened. And even in that time, the COVID-related restrictions changed. So our team has been extremely agile for the last nine months. I think successfully so.”
Farahi added that usually when you think about a casino grand opening, you think wall-to-wall people, and a pompous ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“We didn’t do any of that. We didn’t do any kind of massive ad campaign. Nothing. We only gave three days notice with no ribbon-cutting. It’s just not appropriate to try to create some kind of big, crowded affair right now, and we didn’t do it. So the result was a very soft opening. And it gives us the chance to fine tune the operations so that, God-willing, when we get beyond COVID, we can have a proper celebration.”
Can’t make the Monarch career fair? Don’t fret
For those interested in applying for a career with Monarch, don’t fret if you can’t make it to its fair today. All of the jobs are listed on its website.
As Farahi said:
“Some of the jobs, like for example, dealer, we don’t have any dealers working right now because we don’t have table games. But the day will come, hopefully sooner than later, where we’ll bring our table games back and we’ll have a need for 100 new dealers. And we are encouraging people who would like those jobs to apply for other positions today. Start with us in another position so that as soon as table games are allowed to come back they’re ready to go, they’re already on the team, and they can just transfer to that table games department.”
Good news for casinos in Colorado and the industry these days is in short supply.
For thousands of Coloradans, that struggle is magnified.
The fact hundreds of people could get a fresh start is the dose of positive news we all need.
