The European press does not give credit to what is happening in Cuba. In recent months, the continent’s media have turned their eyes to the enormous exodus that empties the Island to the point of leaving businessmen without workers, the axis of a reportage published by the French agency AFP this Thursday in which catastrophic data comes to light.
The case with which it is illustrated is that of the Havana restaurant Nel Paradiso, which out of 60 employees hired since November 2021 only retains 10. “The opening of Nicaragua was a blow. Of 50 workers, in one week we were left with 30,” account Annie Zúñiga, contracting manager of the establishment. Her experience exposes a great paradox: there are plenty of jobs on the Island, but nobody wants to live there.
According to the note, Zúñiga has been desperate since the government of Daniel Ortega abolished the visa requirement for Cubans, a measure that kicked off an exodus of magnitudes never seen before.
“We have not been able to create a united and lasting team, because when we think: ‘well, this is the team’, one of them comes to me and says: ‘this is my last week, next week I’m leaving'”
“We haven’t been able to create a united and lasting team, because when we think: ‘OK, this is the team’, one of them comes to me and says: ‘This is my last week, next week I’m leaving.’ a catastrophe,” he adds.
Norberto Vázquez, head waiter at Nel Paradiso and sommelier teacher, also recounts his personal experience, after having trained more than 50 Cubans who have already left the island. “Some students tell me, ‘professor, the only thing I’m thinking is how I’m going to leave’, and that makes me incalculably sad”, he explains.
The agency maintains, through an anonymous source, that 30% of the employees of the Parque Central hotel, managed by Iberostar and owned by Gaviota, recently emigrated and their positions have been filled by students. In addition, 60 suppliers of a travel agency run by a Frenchman, Stephane Ferrux, have left in one year.
“When you can’t find anything due to the scarcity of most products, and you feel that you have no future, even if you have the means, that triggers flight,” says Ferrux, who points out that many of these migrants did have very low salaries. elevated. Some even cost 1,500 dollars a month, 45 times more than the average Cuban, which is useless if there is nothing to eat, even in hard currency stores.
If waiters and tourism workers are missing, the situation of the independent press is even more serious, as this newspaper well knows. Recruiting people who risk threats, fines, and imprisonment is much more complex than in any other profession. Although many end up leaving not only because of this, but also because of the lack of quality of life.
At least a dozen journalists and collaborators of ’14ymedio’ have gone into exile in the 9 years of life that they have almost treasured, the most recent case is that of Alejandro Mena Ortiz
At least a dozen journalists and contributors to 14ymedio they have gone into exile in the 9 years of life that they have almost treasured, the most recent case is that of Alejandro Mena Ortiz, who after years walking the streets of Havana to tell the reality of the Island and cover almost clandestinely the 11 of July, he ended up leaving as one of the many hundreds of thousands of Cubans who at the end of 2021 went to do the route of the volcanoes. In the next few days, he expects his family to join him in the US, where he currently resides.
A team from the british news agency Reuters which also published this week a text dedicated to the exodus. “The people here are desperate to leave,” says Carlos Hernández, a 49-year-old fisherman interviewed by the newspaper.
According to the man from Villa Clara, among the residents of this town, just 210 kilometers from the Florida Keys, there is no talk of anything other than the new program of the Joe Biden Administration for the arrival of Cuban migrants through a sponsor, a good option for a safe exit, but not available to everyone who wants to leave.
“Cubans have decided that they cannot live here, and they are going to leave however they can,” Ana María Mederos, who makes a living at 59 years old, tells the agency selling coffee at the door of her house, while She regrets that she cannot leave because she is caring for a sick family member.
“Those who can leave under this new program will do so, but there are many who will not have the possibility and will continue to risk it by sea, by land, whatever”
“Those who can leave under this new program will do so, but there are many who will not have the possibility and will continue to risk it by sea, by land, whatever,” he adds.
The problems to find employees are not only in the private sector. The official newspaper Trabajadores itself reported at the end of 2022 that at the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes thermoelectric plant itself there were 45 vacancies “due to the exodus.” “The generation of electricity has not stopped, but the effort has had to be enormous,” explained the plant’s union leader.
According to the data provided to the international press, the majority of Cuban emigrants are between 19 and 49 years old, in addition to a high educational level. Universities, laboratories, medical centers… migration does not understand sectors and is, in turn, a new factor for the impoverishment of an Island in which the population pyramid is on the brink of collapse.
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