Massive cuts announced for Cuban workforce

HAVANA (AP):

Cuba announced yesterday it would cast off at least half a million state workers by early next year and reduce restrictions on private enterprise to help them find new jobs - the most dramatic step yet in President Raul Castro's push to radically remake employment on the communist-run island.

Castro suggested during a nationally televised address on Easter Sunday that as many as one million Cuban workers - about one in five - might have their jobs made redundant. But the government had not previously laid out specific plans to slash its workforce, and the speed and scope of the coming cutbacks were astounding.

Cuba's official workforce is 5.1 million - meaning nearly 10 per cent of all employees could soon be out of a government job.

Workers caught off guard by the announcement said they are worried whether the tiny private sector could support so many new jobs, a sentiment echoed by some analysts.

"For me, the problem is the salaries, that's the root of it," said Alberto Fuentes, a 47-year-old government worker. "If they fire all of these people, how can they all become self-employed?"

The layoffs will start immediately and continue through April 2011, according to a statement from the nearly three-million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation, which is affiliated with the Communist Party and the only labour union allowed by the government. Eventually, the state will only employ people in "indispensable" areas such as farming, construction, industry, law enforcement and education.