Cubans informing themselves about self-employment

Havana, Agency
Many Cubans on Tuesday began flocking to labor offices around the country to try and determine what awaits them in the private sector now that the government has begun the process of issuing self-employment permits amid a rather large amount of disinformation.

After weeks of anticipation, the municipal offices of the Labor Ministry in Havana opened Tuesday morning displaying updated posters and with dozens of officials on hand and ready to explain the new self-employment rules and regulations, which entered into force on Monday with their publication in the Official Gazette.

"This is really crazy. Yesterday, the official information same out and today we're already starting to attend to people, the majority of them very confused," an official commented to Efe, although he asked not to be identified because such state employees have not been given permission to provide information to the foreign press.

The regulations regarding the process have been put on printed posters displayed outside of municipal offices in Havana, where dozens of curious and interested people gathered on Tuesday to read them.

In preparation for the rising demand for information and permits that started on Tuesday, some offices have set aside large spaces in other government locales to serve the public.

Magdalena, 46, told Efe on Tuesday that she is planning to open a home-delivery food service for which she plans to hire an assistant and use family capital to get her operation under way.

Like many Cubans, she learned of the expansion of private self-employment opportunities in the newspapers, but she came to the labor office in her neighborhood on Tuesday without knowing any of the details regarding the procedures and interviews she will have to go through to obtain her licensing.

At the entrance to the site, two officials welcomed the public with copies of the Official Gazette in their hands to explain to them to the new rules.

The document has become the "Bible" for self-employment on the communist island, and while some people have had to travel substantial distances to acquire one, others are paying 20 times the normal price for a copy on the black market.

Jesus, who lives in Mariel, about 55 kilometers (34 miles) from downtown Havana, told Efe that on Tuesday he had to come into the capital to buy a copy of the Official Gazette because they had sold out near his home.

"It seems that they published very few of them. We're finding people who are reselling them for very high prices, but we're not going to criticize them. You have to live somehow," he said.

Ramon, who accompanied Jesus into Havana, was one of the pioneers in self-employment on the island when in the 1990s the government for the first time allowed people to pursue that option in the face of the economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

"I worked as a street food-vendor from 1992 until 1998. One day, they cancelled my license for a year and I never found out why," Ramon told Efe, adding that he's ready right now to take the same risk because "it's the best thing to do."

In his opinion, the current uncertainty about the new law is similar to that which prevailed 20 years ago, with the difference that now "taxes are higher and the risk is greater."

The government has established a special tax regimen for the self-employed and aspiring entrepreneurs.

According to official figures, at the end of 2009 some 144,000 Cubans were self-employed, and now it is estimated that some 250,000 may enter that sector.

Cuban authorities calculate that after cutting 500,000 jobs over six months to reduce excessive state payrolls, the newly "available" workers will join the independent sector to balance out the labor forces in the country.

However, some of those who say they have "safe" jobs have already decided to quit those jobs because the opportunity they've been awaiting for years to go into business for themselves has now arrived.

That is the case with Regla, who a week ago was an official with a managerial position in a state firm, and her husband, Marcos, who still works as a driver for the government.

According to what they told Efe, they have decided to enter the world of self-employment by starting a business to sell religious items, from herbs and stones for practitioners of Santeria to images of the Virgin Mary.

"In the area around my house, others have opened the same business, and so I have guaranteed competition," Regla told Efe while she waited in line to begin the procedures to set up her business.

Regla, 33, said that she and her husband had been saving for years and had only been waiting for the prohibitions on self-employment to disappear before making their move into the private sector.