Dutch companies and institutions were less productive last year, after years of virtually no change in the labour productivity rate, national statistics office CBS said on Thursday.

Labour productivity in the Netherlands rose by an average of 1.5% a year for decades but since 2014 the increase has averaged just 0.4%. Last year, however, productivity actually fell 1.3%, one of the biggest declines in the last 50 years and second only to 2009 when the credit crisis hit.

There are several reasons for the downturn, the CBS said. Gas extraction from under the province of Groningen was halted because of the earthquakes it caused, and the healthcare, civil service, construction and industrial sectors were all less productive.

In addition, much of the Dutch economy is based on services – such as trade, logistics and financial services and these are sectors where it is more difficult to innovate and so boost productivity.

The growth over the past few years has been down largely to people working more hours rather than added value per hour, the CBS said.

Nevertheless, the Netherlands is still a highly productive country, CBS chief economist Peter Hein van Mulligen told Nu.nl. “The easy innovations have already been made,” he said. “Countries in central and Eastern Europe are growing faster because they have some catching up to do.”

Compared with the rest of the EU, only five countries have a worse record in terms of the growth in labour productivity over the past five years: Finland, Greece, France, Italy and Luxembourg.