More Than 500 Jobs Cut in Final Round of MGM Dismissals

The painful duty of reducing staffing was done last week when MGM Chairman and CEO Jim Murren (l.) announced that 557 employees would lose their jobs. The list concludes the company’s effort to trim $100 million from its labor costs toward the MGM 2020 strategy announced earlier this year.

When MGM Resorts Chairman and CEO Jim Murren announced that the company’s strategic plan to move forward into the next decade included a $100 million reduction in staffing costs, few believed it would be this painful. Losing their jobs over the last few months have been company CFO Dan D’Arrigo, MGM Grand President Scott Sibella, and longtime company spokesman Alan Feldman—not to mention more than 1,000 other individuals.

The latest purge—like earlier ones—were concentrated in the management ranks, said Murren. The goal, he says, is to “streamline our operational model and reduce salaried staff by over 12 percent.”

“I stand behind the decisions we have made and believe them necessary to assure our future, but I deeply regret the impacts they have on individuals and their families,” he wrote in a letter to employees.

The total number of those laid off in this move was 1,033. MGM Resorts employs more than 77,000 people in total.