Cuba's Employment Problem! And the Solution...

But Don't the Workers Own the Means of Production??? How can they be fired from a company that they "own?"

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/Cuba+pink+slip+revolution+begins/3520099/story.html#ixzz0zY5AdvLY

Cuba will eliminate more than 500,000 state jobs over the next six months as part of a push to raise productivity in the communist-ruled island, the country's main labour organization said yesterday.

Workers laid off from government jobs will no longer be sent home with partial pay, but will have to find other ways to make a living, said the Cuban Workers' Central, or CTC by its Spanish acronym.

"Our state neither can nor should continue maintaining companies ... with inflated payrolls, and losses that are a drag on the economy, are counterproductive, generate bad habits and deform workers' performance," it said.

The CTC said the public-sector jobs will be eliminated by March 2011.

More than 85% of the Cuban labour force, or more than five million people, worked for the state at the close of 2009, according to the government.