Greater Amsterdam and Eindhoven are the only two regions in the country where productivity is growing because of the shift to more economically productive sectors, Rabobank economists say in a new report.

The two regions account for a fifth of the country’s economic production, the economists say. 

In all other regions, productivity growth is under pressure because of a shift towards jobs that do not generate significant economic returns, such business support services like cleaning or the hospitality industry.  

In the Netherlands as a whole, the dominance of low-productive sectors has reduced national productivity growth down from 1.5% in the 1990s to 0.5% over the past decade, the researchers say. 

In Eindhoven, the number of jobs in industry and specialist business services has grown considerably while in Amsterdam specialist business services and IT have expanded considerably. These are all sectors with a high added value per hour. 

“If we want to strengthen the Netherland’s earning capacity, we cannot ignore these growth regions,” economist Otto Raspe said. “If all the regions performing below the national average managed to reduce that gap by half, the economy would grow by 6%.” 

This shows the importance of investing in regional economic strategies, the economists said.