BREVARD COUNTY, Fla.,None — Hundreds of people lined up Friday for a shot at a new job on Brevard County's newest casino ship.
In the past, ships like it have gone out of business leaving workers with little notice and no paychecks. Those at Friday's job fair are counting on this gambling cruise to stay afloat.
hundreds of people lined up Friday looking for employment and hoping Victory Casino Cruises will hire them.
The cruise line is new to Port Canaveral's Terminal 2. It spent more than $650,000 to set up shop there and expects thousands to attend Friday's job fair. It needs 400 employees and there were already more than 500 applicants lined up at 11:00am.
Prior work experience isn't a requirement.
"Our plan is to take the next 90 days to organize, train and market our project," said Eric Rahn, president of Victory Casino Cruises.
Victory wants to fill the void left behind by failed SunCruz Casino, whose business went under late last year. One former employee, Pamela Hopkins, has been unemployed since.
"We were pretty disappointed we didn't get a 30-day notice last time, and now that they're cutting everybody's unemployment before Christmas. We're hoping to get a little bit of good news," she said.
But nothing's a guarantee.
"Just because you worked for some of the other companies in the past that does not mean you'll get a job with us," Rahn said.
Victory representatives said their company has no affiliation with any of the other failed gambling ships, but they did buy one of SunCruz's ships from a bankruptcy auction and are renovating it.
When it comes to salaries, all they would say is that they'll be paying the industry standard and they have everything from bartender to management positions available.
WFTV
