Cuba cuts state payroll, private sector jobs grow 23 pct in 2012

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Reuters:

HAVANA, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Cuba's drive to slash state payrolls and spur private-sector growth picked up surprising steam in 2012 as President Raul Castro moved ahead with reforms to the Soviet-style economy, according to figures unveiled recently with little hoopla.

The number of private or "non state" workers rose 23 percent in 2012, while state sector employment dropped 5.7 percent, according to a report from Economy Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez. The unemployment rate grew to a record 3.8 percent, not including Cubans who did not seek work.

The wide-ranging year-end report to the National Assembly, which met in Havana last week, indicated the government is quietly making progress toward its goal of moving toward a more market-oriented economy while maintaining the socialist system in place the last half century.

Just a few years ago, the state employed more than 85 percent of Cuba's labor force, but that is changing as the government battles heavy indebtedness, economic stagnation, poor retail services and pilfering.

The report said the government cut 228,000 public jobs in 2012, on top of the previously announced 137,000 in 2011, closing in on its goal to slash 20 percent, or nearly a million jobs, from its bloated payrolls, by 2016.

At the same time, the number of private, or "non-state" workers as Cuba calls them, rose to 1.1 million jobs, double the number reported two years ago.

The majority of the non-state workers, or about 610,000, were farmers, whose numbers have grown under Castro's agricultural reforms, which include leasing state lands to individuals. The goal is to stimulate local food production and cut the need for budget-draining food imports.

The rest of the non-state workers are mostly in small retail businesses or self-employed such as carpenters, seamstresses, photographers and taxi drivers.

RUNNING THEIR OWN BUSINESS

The cash-strapped state is closing thousands of its small retail outlets such as barbershops and cafeterias, notorious for economic inefficiency and employee theft, and offering to lease the premises to employees or others interested in running their own business.

Starting in 2013 the state plans to turn more than 200 medium-sized businesses, from shrimp breeding and produce markets to construction and light manufacturing, into private cooperatives. The experiment will be expanded if successful.

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The end of the Revolution?