Great Graphic: Labor Productivity and Reading

This Great Graphic comes from Pew Research.  Using OECD data, it depicts the relationship between labor productivity and the use of reading skills at work for a number of high and medium income countries.  

As one would expect the relationship, in this case the correlation, as shown by the diagonal line, the larger share of the labor force whose function employees to read, enjoy greater productivity.   Reading may be a proxy for value-added.

The data is also interesting in terms of where the correlation is particularly weak.  Several countries in eastern and central Europe seem to have particularly low labor productivity, as does South Korea, for the use of reading at work.  Compare Spain and Estonia for example, that have nearly the same reading use, but a considerable difference  in productivity; or South Korea and the Netherlands.  

On the other hand, Italy stands out with relatively good labor productivity despite lower use of reading.  Its labor productivity is as high as in Spain and Canada, with considerably less work requiring reading.  The output per labor hour in Norway is considerably higher than the use of reading, which is likely  reflection of the importance of the extractive industry and ancillary sectors.