Almost 600 jobs were cut Monday at the Pearl River Resort, owned by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Management says the economy is a factor, along with poor planning.

Newscenter 11 was in Choctaw Monday morning and spoke with several employees as they left a staff meeting after getting the bad news.

"I got terminated," said one employee.

And that's what hundreds of employees at the Golden Moon Hotel and Casino learned upon reporting to work Monday. On this day marking the start of the first full work week for 2009, 570 people learned that they no longer have a job.

"I was told that we can draw unemployment," said another employee.

When it came to the job cuts, Pearl River Resort officials say employees who are members of the Choctaw tribe were not affected, but the number of days they will work will be.

"We're going to work three days a week," said Golden Moon employee Justin Ferris. "We ain't getting enough hours. So might as well look for another job."

That's because as part of its 'restructuring' effort, resort officials say for now at least the Golden Moon will not be open Monday through Thursday but instead open only for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Resort CEO, retired Major General Paul Harvey, said at least part of the reason for the cuts is due to the sluggish economy, and about a 25 to 30% drop in the number of patrons.

"We're not in a chapter 11 or 7, any of that. We just need to make more money," Harvey said. "Basically what we need to support the tribe, which really are the people that own these casinos and this resort. We need about $55 to $60 million just from the tribal business at hand. I need about $22 million to service our debt and I need about $10 to $15 million to take care of what they call capital expansion, and that's to keep the casino fresh and all the things that are going on. So, we need about $87 million to $90 million and the way it was structured before we went through this procedure, we just couldn't."

In a news release, resort officials refer to poor planning as a major contributing factor that has led to the cuts. It states that the Golden Moon has strained the resort's earnings since it opened in 2002.

The news release goes on to say that the resort's new management, which was brought in by Miko Beasley Denson after he was elected in 2007, has analyzed operations and found that the Golden Moon was an 'over-expansion for the market the resort serves' and 'poorly planned'.

After the cuts, 3,000 employees will remain on the payroll at the resort as a whole. Officials say those who work full-time at the Golden Moon will have their hours increased to 40 hours a week. At least some had been cut back to 32 hours. Meanwhile as for any other cuts, resort officials say at this time they are not looking at doing this nor do they expect this to happen.