Provisional accounts published by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) on 7 October show labour productivity in the commercial sector rose 2.5% in 2025 from a year earlier. CBS defines productivity as value added per hour worked. In the same calculation, gross value added across the commercial sector increased 1.7%, while total hours worked fell 0.8%. Together, those movements raised output measured per hour. The result is not a final annual statistic: CBS explicitly marks the 2025 figures as provisional.

The measure should not be read simply as output per employee or as growth in total production. When hours worked decline while value added rises, the productivity ratio increases. The 2.5% figure therefore does not show that every worker produced 2.5% more, or that every firm improved costs and profits by the same amount. Sector composition, measurement of hours and later revisions to national accounts can all affect the result. CBS reported a 0.4% decline in 2024 and a 2.0% decline in 2023, placing the 2025 increase after two years of contraction.

In CBS’s decomposition, trade contributed 1.00 percentage point to productivity growth and manufacturing 0.74 points; human health and social work followed at 0.35 points. Transport and storage, and financial services, each added 0.23 points. These contributions are not the sectors’ own output-growth rates. They measure each sector’s contribution to the commercial sector’s overall productivity change. Energy supply and information and communication each made a negative 0.15-point contribution, the largest negative entries. That should not be recast as proof that production in either sector fell.

A separate structural effect tracks how working hours are distributed across sectors. CBS said hours grew relatively faster in sectors with higher productivity, including energy supply and information and communication, leaving this structural effect slightly positive at 0.1%. This does not mean total hours increased: they fell 0.8%. The first effect captures productivity changes within sectors; the structural effect captures shifts in each sector’s share of hours. Keeping the two concepts separate helps explain how the annual total was formed.

CBS also discusses capital use, workforce skills and multifactor productivity as another way of analysing the result. Those categories include using more machinery or equipment per hour, changes in workforce composition, and other influences such as scale economies or technological progress. The provisional release reports sector contributions but does not establish that the 2025 headline increase was caused by artificial intelligence, automation or a particular investment. Final revisions and fuller sector accounts may change the interpretation. The 2.5% figure is a provisional measured aggregate for 2025, not a forecast or a productivity target.