The number of requests for help from gaming workers regarding mental stress was on the rise last year, Macau Gaming Industry Employees Home senior member Pak Kin Pong said yesterday.
The trade union held a press conference yesterday about its 2023 annual services report at its headquarters in Mei Lam Garden Building.
According to the press conference, the union provided last year counselling services to 235 casino employees, of whom 172 sought help from the union for the first time.
Among the reasons the 172 sought help for the first time, the press conference noted, about 47 percent were work related and challenges in finding a job, followed by psychological and emotional problems, gambling disorders, and family problems.
The press conference pointed out that the number of cases requesting psychological and emotional help has been constantly rising in the past few years, showing the rising workload pressure on gaming workers after the three-year COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking to reporters after the press conference, Pak said that among the 172 help-seekers , seven sought help about gambling disorders, three of whom were gaming industry workers addicted to gambling.
Pak said that a number of workers sought psychological help at the union in response to the “relatively high” requirements imposed by the operators they work for, adding that since the pandemic, which began in Macau in early 2020 and ended in late 2022, there have been “significant” adjustments to the work requirements that the city’s six integrated resort (IR) operators expect from their employees, such as customer service requirements, which, Pak added, were more stringent than in the past.
According to Pak, his union will launch a survey on the mental state of gaming workers in May to understand the level of their mental health and common problems, after which the results can be used to formulate more accurate policies and services to maintain the physical and mental health of gaming sector employees.
The Macau Gaming Industry Employees Home union belongs to the Macau Federation of Trade Unions, informally known as Gung Luen, the short form of its name in Cantonese.
At the end of the second quarter of 2023, according to the latest available figures from the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC), the gaming sector had 51,693 full-time employees.
Macau Gaming Industry Employees Home union representatives, including Pak Kin Pong (right) and directly-elected lawmaker Leong Sun Iok (second from right), look on during yesterday’s press conference about their 2023 annual services report at its headquarters in Mei Lam Garden Building. – Photo: MPDG
