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Mass. Gaming Commissioner Says Board Will Ask MGM About Full-Time Hiring

There could be some light shed soon on the backgrounds of full-time employees at the MGM Springfield casino.

MGM has about 3,000 employees in Springfield, Massachusetts -- and is required to hit goals for the hiring of Springfield residents, women, minorities and veterans.

But so far, the company has not been required to say how many people in these categories got full-time jobs.

And that's important because part-time and on-call employees do not receive benefits.

MGM Springfield has declined to release this information, saying its human resources department is too busy.

Massachusetts Gaming Commissioner Bruce Stebbins said the board will be asking MGM for that information at its next quarterly report, due in December.

"They set goals for hiring minorities, women and veterans, we want to see what those numbers are, and are they hitting them, as well as full-time, part-time," Stebbins said.

Jill Griffin, the Gaming Commission's director of workforce, supplier and diversity development, said the board is working with the state's other casinos in tracking information like this.

"The Commission is right now working on a reporting format that all the gaming licensees will be asked to report, and those are some of the bits of information that we'll be asking for," Griffin said.

MGM did announce this week it hit diversity goals for construction jobs at the now-open casino.

About 8.5 percent of the workforce building the casino were women, exceeding the goal of 6.9 percent.

Among construction workers, 21.78 percent were minorities, going past the goal set at 15.3 percent. And 8.71 percent were veterans, more than the 8 percent target.

The company also reported that 35 percent of overall construction workers were from either Springfield or surrounding communities, 55 percent hailed from western Mass. and 71 percent were Massachusetts residents.

Disclosure: MGM has purchased underwriting from New England Public Radio publicizing the company's non-gambling activities. The NEPR newsroom operates independently of the station's development department, and editorial decisions are made without regard to any funding relationships.

Adam joined NEPM as a freelance reporter and fill-in operations assistant during the summer of 2011. For more than 15 years, Adam has had a number stops throughout his broadcast career, including as a news reporter and anchor, sports host and play-by-play announcer as well as a producer and technician.
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