Imbued with a spirit of setting aside triumphalism and taking care not to overstate technical definitions of employment, Granma International requested a meeting with Labor Minister Alfredo Morales.

"Given that the country attained an unemployment rate of 2.3% last year, we have affirmed that it technically comes into the category of full employment. But this is not enough to satisfy us. We have acknowledged that this is the result of a directed plan, non-spontaneous and out of political will," Morales stressed. "We are always guided by the philosophy of Fidel, who emphasizes that, in a socialist state, nobody should be justify out."

In Morales’ opinion, assuming that "work and its results entail a social contribution where, moreover, the workers involved should also receive a benefit from the point of view of decent economic remuneration, their labor cannot be at any price or at any cost." As the minister underlined, it is a matter of approaching work as "a means of improvement, a challenge, and a possibility of being useful." Even if we have an advanced level of full socialist employment (which implies that potentially, everyone should be called on to be useful), a closer look at social realities indicates that the issue of employment is far from being resolved.

"There are people in society who could be useful but have still not joined the workforce. In the case of Cuba, some imperfections still remain; for example, certain regulations that tend to be exclusionary are still in force, where norms and requirements do not allow access to jobs even though the persons concerned have already paid for the social offenses committed," the minister explained, affirming that those rules are outdated.

"Those rules are going to be ended but, above all else, we want them to fade out of people’s minds; in other words a change in people’s perception. If citizens have already paid for their crimes, one has to encourage their social, family and productive reintegration, and not give scope to recidivism. "

Comprehending that the 51,000 students in special schools (428 in total) for children and young people with disabilities, deserve a job just like the rest of the population once they have finished their studies, is a well-accepted criterion and part of the Revolution’s ethical and moral philosophy.

The distortion of this principle appears at the point of entering the workforce. Problems may occur due to the insufficient development of those persons’ professional skills, but also due to lack of family support, or poor coordination between the employers and the educational establishment.

For instance, sometimes deaf or hypo-acoustic workers have a difficult time integrating into a work environment due to a lack of interpreters or someone with a basic knowledge of sign language. In this regard, improved coordination with the hiring entities and the provision of suitable conditions are essential.

"That situation should be favorably reversed by a regulation regarding the labor relations of people with disabilities," the minister remarked. A new strategy for their professional training and wages, including payment to family members would substantially help. Moreover, an increase in the number of number of social and work-related training centers or greater attention to specialized workshops would facilitate a fuller participation of this sector within the workforce. These strategies are being implemented with the support of the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Education, and the MTSS itself.

For Alfredo Morales, the percentage of females employed is an indicator of a country’s social policy. In Cuba, women’s multiple achievements are widely known. The high percentages of women working in the education and health sectors, as well as their prominent participation in professional and technical fields (66%) are doubtless an indication of female emancipation.

In Cuba, employment is not enforced, people join the workforce only if they wish, and this is part of their freedom of choice. After graduating from high school, some young women do not feel attracted or stimulated to work and improve themselves. "An appropriate solution must be found to all these phenomena that relegate the role of women, that strip them of their potential. Turning our back on them is to ignore the humanistic nature of Cuban socialism, which made female emancipation a revolution within the Revolution," the minister pointed out.

Regarding young people, the MTSS believes that certain educational establishments and families are presenting some dysfunctional elements. "Sometimes conditions encourage a group of young people to move out of the system. That emerges from the level of income into their homes, which means that they do not perceive a need to work. There are also those who have had a weak professional training or lacked positive influences. And it is true that some young people opt out of study or work," Morales remarked.

But placing the responsibility only on the side of young people and their families would be a huge error. The minister pointed out that "the administration has deficiently managed the situation of graduates from polytechnics and, as a consequence these young people have not been duly assimilated into the workforce. Therefore, a group of young people felt frustrated and quit their jobs."

In line with those circumstances the concept of No more missing links is to establish future guidelines. In essence, this means that the MTSS, the Ministry of Education, the political and mass organizations and local government will have to improve their mechanisms of making jobs available to graduates from the polytechnics, universities, or active military service so that nobody is justify without the jobs for which they have been trained. School leavers are to be encouraged to remain in education and, at the same time, control of vacancies for young graduates is to be reinforced in order to revert a present trend in which others occasionally benefit.

To illustrate some of the achievements of recent years, it is enough to recall the well-known social programs that have facilitated the employment of 47,104 young people.

In daily conversations among Cubans, there is generalized feeling that trades or skills crucial to the development of a "normal" life, are just not there. Where are the plumbers, carpenters and shoemakers? This is a virtually unanswered question. Some people have put forward the most diverse hypotheses: the eagerness to study, the high value placed on intellectual professions, the rejection of work, as well as the lure of the so-called easy life (paternalism or social overprotection) are possibly depriving us of those indispensable tasks.

Morales went into this topic in depth: "There is a high turnover in certain sectors due to the fact that people can go for better jobs. This happens primarily in the cities, above all in the country’s capital. For that reason, there are still some vacancies. We have job offers in sectors such as construction, agriculture, the economy, and have a shortage of accountants, as well as personnel at certain healthcare levels."

This is something of a relief for those of us who are disheartened due to the problems of finding someone to repair a door or a faucet since, as the head of the MTSS explains, it is his ministry’s intention to gradually fix those shortages.

This is still a long-term goal, "we are working in this direction, and encouraging people to take up that kind of work, unlike the situation of other countries where immigrants are taken on to fill – let’s say, the less attractive jobs. Although there are a series of different factors intervening in these issues, we are not sitting back with our arms folded. Educational improvements that we have been implementing are closely related to this issue. We have to start addressing those problems from elementary school level."

As far back as 1973, at a Central Organization of Cuban Trade Unions (CTC) congress together with Fidel, the theory was put forward of the crucial importance of maintaining constant training beneficial to those directly involved in order to expand their horizons and to provide the Revolution itself with better educated individuals.

"The essence of our system is not placing obstacles on study. For that reason, envisioning that a cane cutter driver could become a mechanical engineer would not be a ridiculous notion; on the contrary, we always encourage this," Morales stated.

When it was pointed out that a higher education could be problematic in the sense that once workers acquire higher skills, they will legitimately aspire to obtain a better job, such as working as an engineer instead of as a cane cutter, the minister of labor and social security confidently affirmed that those are not isolated or rare cases.

"In Cuba, education is perceived as an investment since better educated people will behave satisfactorily wherever they might be. Ours is not a utilitarian approach to using people." The error, he pointed out, lies in encouraging them to become engineers with the future commitment of a job in those sectors.

"What matters is to have free and complete access to the acquired knowledge without having to pay for education. Education is promoted to develop people’s talents to the advantage of society and our families, productivity, and the country’s efficiency and general development."

"It is important to highlight that training and the development of human potential cannot be seen as structurally connected with the occupation of new functions but as giving people the possibility of access, based on higher qualifications and training," he emphasized.

A further significant focus is demonstrated in the Integral Youth Training Course, which has prepared 171,851 young people utilizing a new concept: work as study. And in a renewed municipal link with 198 centers in the country, the universities have opened their doors to everyone without distinction.