The lowest paid workers in Cuba are … those who work in commerce, restaurants and hotels? The best salaries are … in the construction industry? At first glance, these seem to be respectively the peaks and lowest points in the average monthly wage data by economic activity, published by the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (ONEI).
As for wages by province, the highest are in Ciego de Avila, where the average wages of a worker are a little over 500 pesos. Ciego de Avila province maintains that record since 2008, when it overtook Sancti Spiritus at the first spot.
The lowest wages are recorded in Santiago de Cuba and it has been like that since 2012, when the second most populous province replaced in that position Guantanamo on the wage board. However, the difference between the average salary of these territories is negligible: only one Cuban peso.
Specialists from the Department of Social Statistics at ONEI argue that high wages in Ciego de Ávila are “logical, due the tourism in the Keys” in the province. As for the differences between construction and tourism, they explain that they cannot account for gratuities and other income that is well above the average wage and that workers often receive in the second of the above sectors.
In addition, the average wage calculated by the ONEI doesn’t include salary payments in convertible pesos. The report published on its website clarifies that currency is excluded, even in the case of income “from the application of payments and stimulations on work results.”
The Department of Social Statistics explains that convertible pesos and other payments delivered by other stated reasons are not considered as salary but as income. In ONEI has established a methodological difference between the two terms, where the salary is “the national currency income received by workers.”
This concept includes income comes out of the entity’s wage fund and paid rest which is treated as such in the element salary in accordance Cuban Accounting Standards.
Besides wages, ONEI qualifies as income “convertible pesos and other payments for other reasons that are not set wages,” according to one specialist from the Social Statistics Department of the institution.
The CUC is not covered by the 5202 model: the key part of the calculation to determine the average salary of Cuban workers.
The mathematics of salary (kind of)
The average monthly salary in Cuba is usually mentioned in the speeches of finance ministers on duty or by President Raul Castro, always comparing its increase over the level of productivity. But Raul spoke in 2012 of the importance of “maintaining a positive correlation between average wage growth and productivity, which contributes to strengthening the domestic financial balance.”
In addition, in December 2011, the Cuban President praised the fact “preserve domestic monetary equilibrium and favorable dynamics in the relationship productivity – average wage.”
In July 2013 he clarified that any increase in the wage in Cuba should be proportional to an increase in productivity, which also conditions the unification of the two currencies circulating in Cuba.
The average salary is calculated by ONEI through the information collected through the 5202 model, which captures state, budgeted and mixed enterprises throughout Cuba, as well as organizations, institutions and other entities.
There is an agreement that requires the company to provide such statistics. In addition, audits and checks are made of the information in question, which part of primary accounting and personnel records. The role of the Department of Social Statistics is precisely to formalize these figures.
According to the ONEI, the average wage is calculated from the division between the average number of workers in the country (or province, as applicable) and total wages in Cuban pesos of state enterprises and institutions that supply the data.
Is it better to build a hotel than working in it?
The lowest paid sector in Cuba combines the areas of trade, restaurants and hotels. Workers in these activities make as an average salary 376 Cuban pesos a month. On the other hand, the kind of economic activity with higher average wage is building with 580 pesos.
“The construction provides good pay,” an expert from the Department of Social Statistics says, detailing that “we do not publish the salary of a specific staff, but of a whole economic sector.”
Curiosities
The self employed sector and its income are not included in these statistics. Whatever the 400,000 non-state workers in the economy make is not counted, unless they are hired by a state, venture or budgeted enterprise or other entity for the provision of services.
The ONEI also published wage statistics in previous years, from 2006. Then the best average salary was for workers in Havana at that time-with average wage income of 409 pesos.
That means that, on average, in 2012 a resident of Ciego de Avila won in his pay 21% more money than a Havana resident seven years ago. Since 2006, the average Ciego de Avila man saw its earnings rise at a rate of between 20 and 30 pesos per year.
Since then, the provincial ranking on average wage has changed. Havana fell from the first place it occupied in 2006, to the sixth. At the eastern end of the country, Santiago and Guantanamo have never taken off the last, at least in the last six years.
In 2012, the average salary in Cuba was 466 pesos. It had increased by 11 pesos compared with the previous year. In his speech on July 7 before the National Assembly (Parliament) Cuban President Raul Castro hinted that any far-reaching changes in wages and pensions will be undertaken following the abolition of the dual currency.
