Recession brings ‘Las Vegas dream’ to an end

With three children to support, she would be happy to clean tourists’ rooms: “I can do housekeeping work. It’s just really hard to find a job.”

The brasher visitors attracted to Vegas mean that the jobs themselves are far from easy labor, workers’ representatives say. Members of the Culinary Union typically earn about US$15 an hour, but Taylor bristles at the suggestion that cleaning rooms is unskilled.

“You try making up 16 rooms in a day,” he says. “It’s not like working in a business hotel in New York or Chicago. People come here and party. They trash rooms here.”