In these cases, low employment is, exceptionally, a more important reason for low GDP per head than low productivity. Productivity is highest in business and financial services, gross value-added per person employed in the EU being over twice the average for the economy as a whole. It is slightly above average in industry and just below average in distribution, transport and hotels and in non-market and other services. In agriculture, productivity is only around half the average for all sectors. On the other hand, the share of employment in distribution, transport and hotels and in non-market and other services is similar to the EU average, as is the level of productivity.
Employment is much higher than elsewhere in agriculture where productivity is very low.
These are notably in the southern Member States and in Central European countries, except for the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Many of these are concentrated in a central arc, stretching from the West Midlands in England, eastern France and northern Spain, through southern Germany and northern Italy to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. Most of these regions are prosperous and include a number of capital cities in the north of the EU, but the group also includes regions in southern France, Spain and Italy, which have relatively low levels of GDP per head and where employment is concentrated in basic services, many of them catering for the tourist trade. This trend, however, as noted above, has some way to go in many regions, particularly in lagging ones. Indeed, even in the most prosperous regions, employment in services is still growing.