Why are Latin American workers so strikingly unproductive?

Editor’s note (June 9th): The original headline in this article attracted criticism for the phrase “A land of useless workers”. We have changed it to make clear that we are analysing the social and economic costs of low productivity. Our aim is to draw attention to the structural causes of low average labour productivity in Latin American countries, including powerful oligopolies that mute competition and a large informal sector which forces many businesses to remain subscale. As the article makes clear, all of this is beyond the control of individual Latin Americans, whose living standards have suffered. We end with a call for better policymaking.