Rio hotel-casino announces cutbacks

Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2000 | 11:03 a.m.

The Rio hotel-casino announced to employees Tuesday that about 100 jobs will be cut by week's end, a spokesman for Rio parent company Harrah's Entertainment Inc. said today.

Harrah's plans to cut about 100 jobs from the 5,000-employee payroll through a combination of layoffs and voluntary acceptance of severance packages, said Gary Thompson. Jobs will be cut as the operating hours of four restaurants are reduced, a fifth is closed and some table games are removed.

"We've had declining revenues and increasing expenses, and we're trying to reverse those trends," Thompson said.

Though layoffs will begin with those with the least seniority, employees in the affected areas have been offered voluntary severance packages in order to reduce involuntary cutbacks.

"We knew some employees would be leaving to go to other hotels opening, the Suncoast and the Aladdin," Thompson said.

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