Low salaries at odds with high rent in Colorado mountain towns. Some casinos might be able to help.
Finding work in a mountain town that pays enough to keep you close by is a constant struggle for many Coloradans. According to the Jefferson County Business and Workforce Center (which includes Gilpin County), the average salary for a worker in Gilpin County is around $46,000 a year, which can make it difficult to stay in low housing stock and high rent prices.
"Any time we can help highlight positions that would allow somebody to live where they work, we do," said Mike Aman, business services supervisor for Jefferson County Business and Workforce Center.
One of those jobs, according to Monarch Casino in Black Hawk, is that of a card dealer on the casino floor.
The job requires some serious training to make sure employees are pitch perfect in their dealing and following rules and regulations to the letter, but boasts some pretty incredible pay, so long as you've got the right personality for the job.
"A well-trained dealer with a fantastic personality, we have a very good amount of dealers who are making over 100,000 a year," Lori Richter, table games training manager with Monarch Casino said. "That's including tips."
The standard salary is far closer to that mean average, starting around $22,000 a year but with the swinging upside to make a boatload.
That kind of cash can keep Coloradans closer to home if they're trying to live in the high country, although the workforce center said maybe people are still commuting in to Gilpin county for careers too, around 43%.
Still the casinos, like Monarch, are basically the main economic drive of Gilpin, and have plenty of opportunity for those looking.
"The gaming and hotel industry is absolutely critical to Gilpin County," Aman said. "Looking at labor market data over the last year there were almost 2,000 unique job postings in that industry just in Gilpin County... when you look at every other industry, there's not a single one of them that had even 100 job postings."
If you are interested in jobs similar to the one in this story, you can check it out here!