I talked to a number of Las Vegas Taxi Drivers On the state of The Vegas Economy during Zennie62.com coverage of CES 2014. Every time (well, almost everytime) I got into a taxi, I asked the driver if I could interview the person on their view of the state of the Las Vegas Economy. I said I didn’t want to show their face or give their name, unless that was their desire – at no point was that the case.
What I learned was that many cab drivers said Vegas was better in 2014 than at the start of 2010, but I got the feeling some were giving the ‘chamber of commerce’ view. Then there was the fellow who mentioned the impact of Macao on Las Vegas (and which, in 2011, surpassed Las Vegas in gambling revenues) and then there was the driver talking in the final segment of the video.
He gave the most frank view of Las Vegas of all of the drivers. He said that Vegas was not doing well, and it was not the place to come looking for work.
According to the latest figures as of August of 2013 Las Vegas’ unemployment rate is 10 percent, but when you look back to August of 2010, it’s not so bad – the rate was 14.9 percent, then.