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.
编者注释（6月9日）：本文的原始标题引起了对“无用工人的土地”一词的批评。我们已经更改了它，以表明我们正在分析生产力低的社会和经济成本。我们的目的是提请人们注意拉丁美洲国家平均劳动力生产率低的结构原因，包括静音竞争的强大寡头和大型非正式部门，迫使许多企业保持子量表。正如文章所指出的那样，所有这些都超出了各个拉丁美洲人的控制，他们的生活水平遭受了损失。我们以呼吁更好的政策制定结束。
