Cuba to cut one million public sector jobs

Cuba's government employs about 85% of the country's 5.1 million workers

Cuba has announced radical plans to lay off huge numbers of state employees, to help revive the communist country's struggling economy.

The Cuban labour federation said more than a million workers would lose their jobs - half of them by March next year.

Those laid off will be encouraged to become self-employed or join new private enterprises, on which some of the current restrictions will be eased.

Analysts say it is biggest private sector shift since the 1959 revolution.

Cuba's communist government currently controls almost all aspects of the country's economy and employs about 85% of the official workforce, which is put at 5.1 million people.

"Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities, services and budgeted sectors with bloated payrolls and losses that hurt the economy," the labour federation said in a statement.

"Job options will be increased and broadened with new forms of non-state employment, among them leasing land, co-operatives, and self-employment, absorbing hundreds of thousands of workers in the coming years."

Free enterprise?

The governing Communist Party has indicated that strict rules limiting private enterprise will be relaxed and many more licenses will be issued allowing people to become self-employed.

Existing private businesses will be allowed to employ staff for the first time.

President Raul Castro has said the state's role in the economy must shrink

A minority of Cuban workers already work for themselves, for example as hairdressers and taxi-drivers, or running small family restaurants.

There is also a thriving black economy, with many trades people working independently without proper permission from the state.

President Raul Castro outlined the changes in a speech in August, saying the state's role in the economy had to be reduced.

"We have to end forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where you can live without working," he said.

Cuba's state-run economy has been gripped by a severe crisis in the past two years that has forced it to cut imports.

It has suffered from a fall in the price for its main export, nickel, as well as a decline in tourism.

Growth has also been hampered by the 48-year US trade embargo.

Mr Castro became Cuba's leader when his brother, Fidel Castro, stepped aside because of ill-health in 2006.

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