Las Vegas Sands to pay employees through coronavirus shutdown

Las Vegas Sands will continue to pay 9,300 employees through April 30, when Nevada’s state-mandated closure is set to end.

The company's Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson wrote a column last week in the New York Post imploring any companies that can make the numbers work for at least two months to do likewise because “it’s not only the right thing to do — it’s good business.”

“To my fellow corporate executives who are looking at spreadsheets and trying to ­determine the impact this crisis will have on sales and share prices, let me say: Our job as business leaders is now as simple as it is challenging,” he wrote Wednesday. “It is to maximize the number of employees and their families that we can help — and help them for as long as possible.” The op-ed also follows his decision to provide upward of 2 million masks for health workers Nevada and New York.

On Wednesday, Nevada extended its COVID-19 shutdown an extra two weeks, keeping all casinos and other nonessential businesses dark until April 30. The economic stoppage has led to job losses throughout Nevada and the U.S.

The Silver State recorded its largest percentage jump in weekly unemployment claims in more than three decades just a few days before Gov. Steve Sisolak's initial call for the closure of the state’s casinos and non-essential businesses.