Professionals Awaiting their Chance

Professionals Awaiting their Chance
By Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, May 3, 2011 (IPS) - Cuba's opening to private enterprise still
leaves out many professionals who have yet to find a way to use their
skills and potential in non-state industries, although they have not
lost hope that the rules of the game will change.
Self-employment is supposed to provide options for those who lose their
jobs as part of the labour "restructuring" that the Raúl Castro
government is carrying out to reduce inflated state payrolls and
increase labour productivity. Over the next five years, the state is
expected to reduce employment by more than one million jobs.
The 178 types of work authorised for self-employment, however, include
only two or three specific activities for those who have completed
post-secondary education, and even these have limitations.
The repasador, or tutor who gives private lessons, for example, cannot
also hold a job as a teacher at a school, and booksellers, accountants
and accounting assistants cannot be employed as such with any company.
"When I mentioned that I am a civil engineer, they looked at me
disapprovingly…and one official recommended that I should sell snacks,
that it was more profitable," said a person identified as S. Piña Basset
in a letter to the official newspaper Granma, regarding inquiries he
made at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.
With 37 years of experience in his profession, Piña Basset wanted to use
the opportunity to work as a private contractor, the only approved
activity which seemed to fit his profession. He had previously
investigated and found that a market existed, as did the possibility of
joining together with several others to build homes and similar projects.
Dissatisfied with the response he received at the ministry, where he was
told that university graduates could not exercise their professions as
self-employed workers, he decided to "wait for the instructions and
clarification that should be given to the entities" responsible for his
case. It was not possible to contact him to learn the results of his wait.
However, responding to a question from IPS, Deputy Labour Minister
Carlos Mateu confirmed that the only option in the construction field
for professionals with similar backgrounds was to work as a private
contractor, as long as state agencies or companies authorised for that
type of activity are "interested" in such contracts, and he listed as
examples the Havana City Historian's Office and the Palco company.
"If there is no interest in having a contractor, the relationship is not
established," Mateu said. For now, there is no plan to lengthen the list
of jobs or trades for non-state self-employment, he noted.
"If a large number of people were to be interested in a given activity,
the advisability of adding it or not would be evaluated," he said.
In his most recent report on the issue, Mateu said that 201,116 newly
self-employed workers were registered as of Apr. 8. The total number of
independent workers was 301,033, when adding those who were already
employed in non-state jobs authorised by existing regulations prior to
the October decree.
The jobs in highest demand continue to be food preparer and provider of
transportation for freight and passengers. Many people also work as
hired labour in some 80-plus activities for which individuals may employ
others, such as renting rooms and operating small restaurants, known as
"paladares" in Cuba since they first emerged in the 1990s.
"In general, all of the activities permitted are very basic and even
poor. Personal enrichment is discouraged, but wealth is not created that
way, either," architect Mario Coyula commented to IPS, noting that "the
old prejudice against the self-employment of professionals seems to
persist."
The development of private businesses, however, requires people with
expertise in designing and building facilities, most of which are built
spontaneously, without any oversight and with few resources. "The result
is an impoverished image, which gives a distorted view of the city,"
Coyula said.
"The irony is that many architects, including retired ones, would be
willing to design projects for these new facilities and charge
reasonably. These types of projects are so simple that no state company
would be interested," he added.
It is an "aberration that professionals with university degrees devote
themselves to driving taxis or selling homemade sweets, and cannot work
in their professions. Moreover, if the elimination of inflated payrolls
is taken to its final consequences, there will also be many 'available'
architects who will not be able to work independently in their
profession," he noted.
Coyula said that "the independent employment of professionals will be a
necessity, whether as individuals, in teams, or in cooperatives. In my
opinion, the government should support all ways of creating jobs, in all
fields, if the goal is to eliminate inflated payrolls. All of that
urgently requires creating a legal foundation and above all, defining
the scope of the concept of property."
According to official figures quoted by researchers, from 1996-2008
alone, 350,398 people graduated from university in Cuba. During that
period the number of degree-holders increased 4.7 times more than GDP at
1997 prices. Meanwhile, the average current enrolment in higher
education is half a million.
The authorised activities "are not knowledge-intensive and do not take
advantage of the investment in education that the country has made for
decades," warned economist Pável Vidal in a research paper to which IPS
had access. Vidal said in his report that financial difficulties could
hinder the credit policy approved for the emerging non-state sector.
More flexible regulations in this respect "also do not permit the
creation of small and medium-size businesses that can be integrated into
the large-scale national productive sector, or that can generate
exportable funds," said Vidal, noting that the development of this type
of business can play an important role in the country's economic growth.
For now, many professionals have decided to wait and see what is in
store for them in the laws, resolutions and regulations to be channelled
and ordered by the changes and reforms passed by the Sixth Congress of
the Cuban Communist Party, held April 16-19, to update the economic model.

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