Cuba to cut 500,000 state jobs

Havana, Sep 14 (IANS/EFE) The Cuban government has announced that it will immediately initiate changes in its employment policy that will include, among other things, cutting more than 500,000 workers from the state payroll through the first half of 2011.

The CTC - Cuba’s only legal union - Monday published a “pronouncement” that for the first time makes official the rumours that have been circulating on the island in recent weeks and will translate into a drastic reduction in state employees.

“In a parallel manner (there will be) an increase in the non-state sector … (via) new forms of non-state labour relationships as an employment alternative: renting … cooperatives and labour for one’s own account, to where hundreds of thousands of workers will move in the coming years,” the document says.

This entire process will be undertaken in a gradual manner, but the CTC warns that “it will be initiated immediately and, due to its magnitude and impact, it will cover all sectors”.

In addition, “the current labour and salary treatment will be modified … given that it will not be possible to apply the formula of indefinitely protecting or subsidising the salaries of workers”, and this system will be gradually replaced by “payment for results”.

All these measures, which constitute a true revolution in the Cuban employment model, have been preceded by a series of calls for attention by President Raul Castro to the burden being supported by the Cuban state and the need to improve productivity and economic efficiency on the communist-ruled island.

–IANS/EFE