MGM Resorts plans to lay off 18,000 workers

MGM Resorts is laying off 18,000 people as an unchecked pandemic leaves economic scars across a broad swath of U.S. industries, particularly those that rely on healthy crowds of people.

MGM furloughed 62,000 of its 70,000 employees when casinos in Nevada were forced to close on March 17. Many of them opened again in early June, but mandated capacity controls are in place.

MGM has with properties in Mississippi, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York and overseas in Macao and has brought back workers, but with 50% capacity limits, fewer workers are needed. Two properties, one in New York and one in Las Vegas, are still closed.

MGM said that federal law requires the company to send layoff notices to employees that have been furloughed for six months.

The company said it will rehire workers when it can.

The layoffs at MGM, which amount to about a quarter of their U.S staff of about 70,000, caps a wave of job cuts and buyouts this week from a broad array of industries. Earlier on Friday, Coca-Cola said it was offering buyouts to 4,000 employees ahead of pending layoffs.

Half of Coca-Cola’s sales come from stadiums, movie theaters and other places where people gather in large numbers — venues that have been closed during the coronavirus pandemic. Revenue tumbled 28% in the Atlanta company’s most recent quarter.

United and American airlines, beset by plunging air travel, cut thousands of jobs this week. Tech company Salesforce is cutting 1,000 jobs and Bed Bath & Beyond cut 2,800 positions.

Those numbers represent only a fraction of the carnage across the U.S. economy. Thursday, the Labor Department reported that another million Americans applied for unemployment benefits. More than 14.5 million are collecting traditional jobless benefits — up from 1.7 million a year ago — with no end in sight.

The Conference Board, a business research group, reported this week that consumer confidence has tumbled to its lowest level since 2014. Consumer spending makes up about 70% of the economic activity in the U.S.

And although U.S. consumers increased their spending by 1.9% last month, it’s a small dose of support for an economy struggling to emerge from the grip of a pandemic that has held back a recovery and kept roughly 27 million people jobless.