Atlantic City is facing economic collapse.

Atlantic City, the first city outside of Las Vegas to open legal casinos in the United States 36 years ago, recently has seen a severe drop in the number of casino employees – a number which once exceeded the number of city residents.

As reported by philly.com, the casinos which have closed most recently include Showboat and Revel this weekend and Trump Plaza is scheduled to close in two weeks. The number of jobs lost is 5,700. Atlantic Club closed in January, initiating the loss of 1,600 jobs.

Chief economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester Mark Zandi told The Inquirer, “This is a massive economic body blow to Atlantic City on par with the hit to the national economy during the Great Recession.”

Alan Silver, a former casino-industry executive who teaches at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, clarified the severity of the closing of the casinos: “It hasn’t happened in this type of context, where they are going to shutter them up and literally can’t give them away for pennies on the dollar.”

Fitch Ratings was hopeful that the gamblers who were regulars at the closing casinos will continue to patron other casinos in the area, increasing the profits of those survivors.

Caesars Entertainment Inc. said 470 of 2,068 of their employees who worked at Showboat had found jobs at other casinos run by Caesars, mostly in Atlantic City.

Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian is hopeful that the loss to the city will be softened by the opening of a Bass Pro Shops and a Harrah’s Conference Center, which will create an estimated 1,300 jobs. He is also hopeful the Revel property will sell for $25 million to $50 million and reopen as a casino.

The number of casino jobs there will be once Trump Plaza closes will be just over half the number there was during 1997 when the number of casino jobs was at its peak. Most years during that time, the number of casino jobs was around 45,000 and was at 49,000 in 1997; in two weeks, the number will be 26,000. This loss is 4 percent of the city’s total labor force of 131,800.