Web-based firm helps displaced workers find jobs

Tim Talley

Thursday, Sept. 22, 2005 | 9:42 a.m.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Gaming workers who used to shuffle the cards and count the cash at casinos in Louisiana and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast that were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina are turning by the thousands to a Web-based gaming industry recruiter to find work.

HRLogix, which markets recruiting management technology to some of the nation's largest casino companies, has teamed with more than 140 casinos to create an online listing where job applicants can view a collective pool of thousands of available gaming positions nationwide.

The Web site received 2,916 hits from jobseekers through 5 p.m. Wednesday, its first day online.

"They're all out of work," said David Johndrow, vice president of the Edmond, Okla.-based company. "We're very excited about it and hopefully these people will find good homes."

Katrina destroyed casinos and other structures along the Gulf Coast when it came ashore with 150 mph winds and a 25-foot storm surge on Aug. 29. About 14,000 people worked in the dozen casinos along the Mississippi coastline.

Johndrow said four of the damaged casinos, including Casino Magic in Biloxi and Bay St. Louis, Miss., were clients of HRLogix, which provides recruiting tools to the gaming industry.

"Those are people who have been our clients for three years. So what could we do?" he said.

Through links with casinos such as the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay and the Venetian in Las Vegas and tribal casinos and gaming companies throughout the nation, former workers at Gulf Coast casinos can view available jobs and apply online, he said. The company included links with its own competitors in the listing.

"Their main thing is to get these people back to work," Johndrow said. "We don't care where the jobs come from as long as there's jobs. We just wanted to put up a good-faith effort because we were in a unique position to do so."

The listing includes skilled gaming workers like dealers and cashiers as well as housekeepers, accounting specialists, restaurant workers, computer operators and surveillance employees. Salaries run the gamut from minimum wage workers to managers who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"There's a lot of things that go into making a casino work," Johndrow said.

Many of the computer hits recorded the first day originated in Texas and the Baton Rouge, La., area where thousands of New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents evacuated ahead of the storm.

Maryann Gagnon, president of HRLogix, said the company will give unemployed casino workers rapid job relocation assistance through its paperless hiring system.

"Our goal is to offer support to our clients and their employees that have been affected, and give back to the industry that has been so good to us," Gagnon said.