“We don’t have time to replace the staff who are leaving”: in more than a year, the Nel Paradiso restaurant in Havana has lost 50 employees, who have come to swell the unprecedented wave of emigration affecting Cuba.
The restaurant, located in the center of the capital, reopened in September 2021, after the pandemic. Two months later, Nicaragua, an ally of Havana, decided to abolish visas for Cubans, triggering a record exodus, in particular to the United States via Central America.
“The opening of Nicaragua was a blow (…) in one week, out of 50 employees that we had, we found ourselves with 30”, tells AFP Annie Zuñiga, 26, in charge of recruitment. in the private restaurant.
Of 60 employees recruited over the past 14 months, only 10 still reside on the island. And finding replacements for those who decide to leave the country turns into a headache.
“We have not succeeded in forming a united and lasting team because when we say to ourselves it’s good, the team is ready (…) one comes to tell us + I’m leaving for the week next+. It’s catastrophic,” she said.
In 2022, the American authorities carried out more than 313,000 arrests of Cubans who entered the United States illegally, unheard of in 60 years of communist government. Not to mention illegal emigration by sea across the Florida Strait (140 km) which has skyrocketed.
The United States, which recently announced measures to try to curb illegal emigration from Latin America and the Caribbean, is the main destination for Cubans. Others are heading for South America or Europe, but no statistics are available.
This exodus comes as Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in 30 years, a consequence of the pandemic, structural economic weaknesses and reinforced American sanctions under Donald Trump (2017-2021).
Inflation is galloping, there are daily queues for food and fuel, many medicines cannot be found on the island and power cuts have peaked in 2022, fueling social unrest.
– “Desperate cry” –
In a country of 11.1 million inhabitants, whose population is steadily decreasing, the lack of staff “puts us in difficulty”, says the head of the Nel Paradiso room, Norberto Vazquez, also a sommelier professor.
“Some students tell me + teacher, the only thing I think about is how I’m going to emigrate +, it pains me immeasurably”, he confides.
According to the Center for Demographic Studies of the University of Havana, the majority of Cubans who emigrate are between 19 and 49 years old and have a good level of qualification.
Tourism, the economic engine of the island, already hard hit by the pandemic, is not spared, in particular the luxury hotels of the capital, companies of mixed economy between the Cuban State and foreign groups.
“About 30% of the employees” of the Parque Central hotel, managed by the Spanish group Iberostar, have thus emigrated in recent months, which has forced officials to call on students from the hotel school to replace them, explains to AFP an employee on condition of anonymity.
Owner of a travel agency in Cuba since 1995, Stéphane Ferrux, a French entrepreneur, says that “about ten” of his service providers out of 60 have emigrated in one year, stressing that it is not only a question of a question of income, some being able to earn up to 1,500 dollars per month, or 45 times the average salary.
“When you can’t find anything, even when you have the means” due to shortages of all kinds, and “when you feel without perspective for the future, that triggers the departure”, he notes.
Private sector, public companies and even embassies are affected by the phenomenon.
In January, the “desperate cry” of a science professor at the University of Havana went viral on social networks: “Our laboratories are emptying (…) We are losing what is has the most precious in our country”, he launched, deploring the departure of students.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel acknowledged in October “high emigration to Cuba”, accusing US laws of favoring Cuban migrants. “Every young person who abandons their studies or their work to emigrate” is a “defeat”, he admitted.