People with low literacy skills face considerable challenges in a modern, complex work environment that demands adaptability and continuous learning. It is a considerable problem for employers, and costs them a lot in terms of productivity, mistakes, re-work, customer service, and workplace safety. Unlike complete illiteracy, functional illiteracy (as its name implies) enables the poorly literate to ‘hide’ their dysfunction because they’re able to get by without their poor reading skills being obvious. What’s most problematic is that functional illiteracy is pervasive, and highly underestimated.
In 1979 my father, Dr. John Towler, wrote an article entitled The Illiteracy Problem Is Shameful. At that time, it was estimated that approximately one third of the U.S. population was functionally illiterate, and approximately twenty-five percent of Canadians were as well.
Almost fifty years have passed since its publication, but it appears that things haven’t gotten any better. In fact, they’ve gotten much worse.
According to current research[i], approximately fifty-four percent of adults in the U.S. aged 16-74 (about 130 million people) lack proficiency in literacy beyond a sixth-grade level, and twenty-one percent are functionally illiterate, reading at or below the fifth-grade level. According to the National Center for Education Statistics this translates into 43 million Americans who have very basic or non-existent literacy skills required for everyday tasks. According to the American National Literacy Institute:
- Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in [America] that 130 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children.
- 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.
- 54% of adults have a literacy rate below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).
- 45 million [Americans] are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level.
- 50% of the unemployed between the ages of 16 and 21 cannot read well enough to be considered functionally literate.
- The US ranks 36th in literacy internationally.
- Illiteracy costs American taxpayers an estimated $20 billion each year.
In Canada, an estimated forty-eight percent of the population has low literacy skills. Seventeen percent of them are functionally illiterate and thirty-one percent of them, while not completely unable to function, struggle with complex or abstract information.
The U.S. economy loses an estimated $2.2 trillion annually due to low literacy rates. In Canada it’s estimated at $32 billion in losses.
What’s The Difference Between Illiteracy and Functional Illiteracy?
Level 1 – Illiteracy means a complete inability to read or write, and/or very basic or non-existent literacy skills required for everyday tasks
Level 2 – Functional Illiteracy means a lack of reading, writing, and calculating skills needed for everyday life and work. Functionally illiterate people can manage simple, clearly laid out texts but encounter difficulties with more complex or abstract information.
The functionally illiterate may possess rudimentary decoding skills, allowing them to read words, but they struggle significantly with comprehension, critical thinking, and the practical application of information in real-world contexts. Illiteracy isn’t solely due to educational quality, changing skill demands in the labor market, language barriers, and socio-economic disparities, but is a combination of these factors.
The Problems That Illiteracy Creates For Employers
Low literacy rates have significant negative impacts on employers. They include:
- Reduced productivity, increased errors, and higher accident rates.
- Longer task completion times and increased errors.
- A workforce that struggles to understand instructions, operate machinery, or adapt to new processes.
- A significant barrier to the adoption of modern operational strategies like lean methodologies and digital transformation.
- Making it difficult for businesses to find qualified candidates for both entry-level and skilled positions.
- Increased training costs.
- Making upskilling or reskilling the workforce difficult.
- Poor customer service resulting in misunderstandings, reduced customer satisfaction, and ultimately damage to brand reputation.
- Customers with low literacy have difficulty understanding product information, contracts, or service agreements.
- Higher safety, compliance and operational risks due to the inability to understand safety manuals, warning labels, or regulatory compliance documents.
Illiteracy in reading and comprehension means digital illiteracy as well. Understanding on-screen instructions, error messages, or data visualizations rely upon foundational literacy skills.
Over the past five years at least, our clients have been complaining about the lack of applicants they receive when posting job ads, and the quality of the applicants that they do get. When you consider that more than 50% of those applying may not be able to read at better than a 6th grade level, the applicant pool is shrunken even further.
What can employers do about this? Although the answer might seem obvious, it’s as simple as testing your applicants for basic literacy skills, and that’s easy to do because There’s A Test For That! The even better news is that there are many options available as well.
Employers who want to ensure that their applicants are literate have little option but to assess their skills to confirm that they’re capable of delivering what the job demands. There are many ways for employers to accomplish this, and many of them are very inexpensive.
Some of the solutions include:
- Basic Skills Tests (BST®) – containing tests for arithmetic, language skills, reading comprehension, computation, reasoning, and following written directions.
- Cognitive Skills Test – Basic Reading & Math – assessing general reading and math skills.
- English Vocabulary – assessing knowledge of English vocabulary, including analogies, foreign words, professional terms.
- Entry-Level Basic Skills Aptitude Test – measuring the ability to correctly answer questions in English and identify those easiest to train.
- Kenexa Skills Tests – containing tests for basic English, reading comprehension, spelling, light industrial reading comprehension, and available in several languages.
- Reading Comprehension Test
- Reading Comprehension Aptitude Test
- Shipping & Receiving Specialist Test – identifies basic literacy and math, conscientiousness, detail orientation and integrity.
- Skillcheck Tests – containing tests for reading comprehension (basic, general, industrial, and retail).
- Skills Profiler – assesses basic skills (mathematical, verbal and written) that can be successfully applied to a variety of situations.
- Spelling Aptitude Test – measuring the the ability to identify and correct commonly misspelled words in clerical and proofreading roles.
- Spelling US – measure’s a candidate’s knowledge of spelling in American English.
- Technical Writing Test – measures experienced writers’ knowledge of the appropriate design and style for technical documentation.
- Verify Ability Tests – containing tests for reading comprehension and verbal ability.
- Warehouse Shipping & Reading Test – assesses the ability of warehouse and shipping personnel to read and comprehend the material read.
- Workplace Essentials Profile Test – assesses math, reading, work ethic and more.
- Workplace Reading Comprehension Test
- Workplace Vocabulary Skills
- Written English – Written French – Written Spanish – 3 separate assessments of grammar and reading comprehension in 3 languages.
There’s even a Test For Dyslexia
The ‘cure’ for our collective literacy problem must fall to legislators and educators to address.
Employers, however, can ensure that those that they hire have the critical skills for success before making a job offer, simply by testing for the skills that the job demands. If one out of every two applicants is potentially functionally illiterate, there’s a 50/50 chance of hiring someone who will make mistakes, cost you money, or possibly damage your reputation or get you into legal hot water.
Our illiteracy problem is shameful but failing to screen out those who are illiterate is shameful too, when there are many quick, easy, and inexpensive ways to do so. No matter what role you’re trying to fill, test your applicants, because as always, There’s A Test For That!
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David Towler is President of Creative Organizational Design, a firm offering nearly 50 years of expertise specializing in employee assessments and has over 5000 different tests available. Creative Organizational Design has assessments designed to help employers screen out other people’s rejects, assess skills, aptitudes, attitudes, and ‘fit’ within an organization. For more information about the many options available and to obtain expert help in selecting the best tools for your needs please contact us because no matter what personnel challenges you’re facing – there’s a test for that! Please send comments about this article to dtowler@creativeorgdesign.com.