The mass exodus harms private entrepreneurs in Cuba
By Natalia Lopez Moya (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – Regular customers of a privately owned bakery on San Lázaro Street in Central Habana were surprised this week to see the owner of the business both kneading dough and working the counter. “The cook left the country, so this is now a one-woman show,” explains the entrepreneur, one of many who have been hit by the exodus affecting Cuba’s private-sector economy.
“This is the third cook I’ve lost since I opened,” says the woman, who owns a shop specializing in breads, desserts and cookies. “He was making money here but, of course, it doesn’t compare… He had signed up for the US humanitarian parole program* last year and they just told him that it had been granted. From the time he found out until the time he left was less than a week. I didn’t have time to look for someone else.”
The employee’s departure has had a very negative impact on the bakery’s profits. “I can no longer take orders for weddings or parties because I can’t keep up. Also, I have had to limit the types of bread that I sell. I’ve lost thousands of pesos in a few days compared to the sales I had in previous months.”
To avoid unwelcome surprises after training an employee in the ins-and-outs of their operations, many small and medium-sized business owners prefer to rely on their own family members. “Here we have my wife, my two daughters and me,” says Luis Mario, owner of a shop specializing in birthday buffets in Havana’s Cerro district. “I feel more secure because nothing happens from one day to the next without me finding out about it.”
Last year, we hired a courier. If he made ten deliveries a day, it was a lot. One day, I come into work only to find out that he had left for Nicaragua en route
