In more than a year of record exodus to Cuba, the Nel Paradiso restaurant in Havana it lost 50 employees and completing your payroll seems like an unattainable goal. “You don’t have time to recover staff who leave,” complains one of its managers.
After closing due to the coronavirus pandemic, the restaurant reopened its doors two months before Havana’s ally Nicaragua decreed visa-free travel for Cubans in November 2021, sparking the largest wave of immigration in more than six months. decades of communist rule.
“The opening of Nicaragua was a huge blow (…) out of 50 workers, 30 remained in a week,” Annie Zúñiga, 26, the recruiting manager at the restaurant, located in the center of the Cuban capital, told AFP.
On the terrace of the restaurant, which offers an enviable view, Zúñiga explains that of the 60 workers hired in the last 14 months, “10 remain in Cuba”.
The desire to leave
Filling the vacancies left by migrant workers becomes a time-consuming and resource-consuming task.
“We haven’t been able to form a united and lasting group, because when we think, well, this is the team (…), one comes and tells me ‘this is my last week, I’m leaving next week‘” adds the young woman. “It’s catastrophic,” she says.
According to official US statistics, border authorities intercepted 313,488 Cubans who entered the country illegally in 2022. The vast majority entered through the border with Mexico, but arrivals by sea, through the Strait of Florida (140 km), also skyrocketed last year.
The United States, which is trying to stop the migration flow from Latin America and the Caribbean with new measures, it is the main destination of the Cubans. There are no official figures for Cubans migrating to other countries.
The massive exodus comes at a time when Cuba’s population of 11.1 million it ages and declinesas well as facing the worst economic crisis in three decades due to the impact of the pandemic, internal inefficiency issues and the tightening of the US blockade.
Cubans are suffering from galloping inflation, as well as boring queues to buy food and fuel; Medicines are in short supply and blackouts hit a record in 2022, causing social unrest.
The lack of staff “puts us in trouble”, says Nel Paradiso’s head waiter, Norberto Vázquez. This gastronomy teacher points it out has trained “more than 50 sommeliers” who “are not in Cuba today”.
“Some students tell me ‘master, lThe only thing I’m thinking about is how I’m going to leave‘, and that pains me incalculably,” he adds.
a critical age
Most Cubans who emigrate are between the ages of 19 and 49 and have high levels of qualification, according to data from the Center for Demographic Studies of the University of Havana.
On the island, the current wave of migration is affecting many sectors, including tourism, an economic engine that is starting to reactivate after the strong impact of the pandemic.
Luxury hotels are not exempt. “30% of employees of the Hotel Parque Central, a joint venture with investments by Spain’s Iberostar group and the Cuban government, has emigrated and its managers have had to hire hotel students to fill vacancies, an unnamed source told AFP.
Similarly, Frenchman Stéphane Ferrux has seen a dozen of the 60 travel agency service providers he manages in Havana migrate in a year since 1995.
Some of these self-employed workers receive a monthly salary of up to $1,500, equal to 45 average salaries on the island.
“When you can’t find anything”, due to the general scarcity and “you feel without a future perspective, even if you have the means, which triggers the game“Ferrux says.
private companies, but also public bodies and embassieshave been affected by this phenomenon.
In January, the “desperate cry” of a science professor at the University of Havana went viral on social networks: “The laboratories are emptying us (…) we lose the most precious“.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel admitted in October that “emigration is high in Cuba”and he blamed it on the laws of the United States which favor Cuban emigration.
“Every young person who leaves school and works to emigrate” is “a defeat”, he considered.
AFP agency
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.