The socio-economical transformation taken place in Cuba after 1959, brought about the implementation of a development strategy that links economic development with social policies, which have been aimed from the very beginning at finding every citizen an employment and at reducing the high levels of unemployment and underemployment inherited from the neocolonial regimes that preceded the Revolution.

The eradication of unemployment came about very rapidly. If in 1959 unemployment rate was 24% the housing population census of 1970 put that rate at a 1.3%, reaching the country the status of full employment, and it kept it so till 1980 where employment increases were recorded as of 3,4% of annual average.

With the collapse of the socialist block and, particularly, the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, together with the strengthening of the economic blockade imposed by the U.S. for about four decades , the country's economy received a strong blow, at such a level that between 1989 and 1993, the GDP fell about 35 %.

This situation had its impact on employment which between 1990-1995 saw a reduction of an annual rate of 1.5%. Facing this fact the employment policy has set its main goals:

To encourage the preparation of the work force needed for the Development Programs that the country faced as an alternative to escape the crisis, mainly in Tourism, Biotechnology and the Pharmaceutical Industry.
To reach for a more efficient use of the work force, carrying out enterprise reengineering processes and gradual rationalization of the exceeding staff. This process started through the Bodies of State Administration.
To protect the workers that become affected by the rationalization processes in the pay rolls, stating legal norms that establish guaranty or subsidies to workers according to the amount of time served. No worker should be left without shelter.
To develop the Territorial Employment Programs, giving priorities to those provinces and municipalities with a starker reality.
To develop Training Programs either of qualification for the rationalized personnel or for others looking for jobs, aimed at enabling their work insertion.
Despite the difficult economic situation to maintain the policy of ensuring jobs for the young people that have finished higher education and to protect those graduating from technical training.
To create Especial Employment Programs directed at the most vulnerable sectors of the population, such as: disabled people, single mothers and other people requiring it.
The adoption of these actions permitted to face the employment situation and to avoid the skyrocketing levels of unemployment rates.

The economic recovery started in 1994, began to become evident in 1996 and in the last three years until 1998 employment has increased at an annual rate of 1,1 %.

The participation of women in the employment has kept a steady growth, when it came from 38,7% to 42,9% in 1998. This tendency was not affected in the difficult years of our economy and it has offered the figure of over 1300 000 women involved in the different economic activities of the country. Today over 66% of the technical personnel is made up of women , what shows their educational development and their talent.

One sphere seriously developed along this Special Period years was the insertion to employment of those physically disabled. There is a National Program for this aim, it has given jobs to this segment of the population, bearing in mind those really needing it.

In this decade the work in the cooperative sector took momentum, since the state wanted to favor the delivery of state land for cooperative production and the creation of joint enterprises with foreign capital, in activities like tourism, communication and other sectors.

It is to be underlined as to the behavior of employment in the last years the role played by the Territorial Job Programs, where local alternatives are encouraged, and inserted in the social and economic Development Plans to motivate the creation of useful jobs.

The employment policy carried out by the country during these difficult Special Period years, devoid of budget curtailing as to its social security, together with the economical recovery started in 1994, are a more hopeful view for the next years.

(Taken from: Cubagob.cu)