many businesses have been doing things in new ways, but have put restructuring on hold. over the past year, there have been fewer bankruptcies than normal, and investment activity in the business sector has been low. the downturn may have reduced the value of production capital and skills. new businesses will be established, and workers will have to acquire new skills. this process takes time and, while underway, may dampen productivity growth further. but the pandemic may also unlock a larger share of the potential inherent in new technologies, perhaps in certain service segments in particular. over the past year, we have been forced to use a wider array of digital tools, both at work and at home. online shopping has surged. large - scale processes have been managed from kitchen tables, children ’ s bedrooms and home basement offices. international conferences are livestreamed. we will continue to use many of these solutions. the pandemic will also leave behind a positive legacy. last winter we saw how short the path was from a local virus outbreak in wuhan to a global health crisis. covid - 19 followed the same routes as tourists, labour and goods. the virus showed how closely interconnected and interdependent countries are. 2 see the productivity j - curve : how intangibles complement general purpose technologies erik brynjolfsson, daniel rock, and chad syverson nber working paper no. 25148, https : / / www. nber. org / system / files / working _ papers / w25148 / revisions / w25148. rev0. pdf norges bank chart 5 growth in global trade has stalled share of global gdp. percent trade in goods trade in services economic perspectives 18 february 2021 sources : refinitiv datastream, wto and norges bank a rising number of countries have been integrated into world trade over the past decades ( chart 5 ). the gains have been substantial. poverty has been reduced. crossborder cooperation has enabled technology to advance faster than it would have done otherwise. since the financial crisis, growth in global trade has stalled. while service exports have continued to rise, trade in goods as a share of global gdp has been more or less flat in recent years because a number of sources of growth in goods trade are drying up. large countries such as china and india are now fully integrated into the global economy. robotisation has put the brakes on offshoring production from high - cost countries. so far there are

bank growth in output per capita has been moving down over several years ( chart 3 ), and labour input is now growing at a snail ’ s pace. at the same time, the primary source of growth – productivity – is making a steadily smaller contribution. this is a trend we share with other advanced economies. an underlying driving force – cross - border trade – is showing signs of flattening out. the pandemic could influence these trends. previously, sharp declines in economic activity have been followed by a persistent rise in unemployment and a lower labour force participation rate. in norway, we saw this following the financial crisis and after the fall in oil prices in 2014. five years after the oil price fall, employment was still lower than before in those parts of the country that were particularly hard hit. 1 chart 4 rising number with low education levels among long - term unemployed long - term unemployed. number of persons february 2020 january 2021 lower upper higher education, higher education, secondary school secondary school up to four years over four years source : norwegian labour and welfare administration ( nav ) 1 ellingsen and galaasen ( 2021 ) : langvarige konsekvenser i arbeidsmarkedet [ lasting consequences in the labour market ], staff memo 1 / 2021, norges bank ( norwegian only ). the pandemic may result in a new round of exclusion from the labour market. many have now been out of work for a long time, and the share of long - term unemployed is higher than in earlier crises. many of them have low education levels ( chart 4 ). long - term unemployment leads to a loss of skills. norges bank economic perspectives 18 february 2021 the support schemes implemented by the authorities are meant to be a bridge to more normal times. but the new normal will be shaped by adjustments in household and business behaviour over the past year. once the economic downturn is over, the labour market may have changed. certain jobs may not be coming back, making the path back to work difficult for some. a number of long - term unemployed may drop out of the labour market entirely. the long - term decline in productivity growth has taken place alongside a digital revolution. a number of explanations for this apparent paradox have been advanced. for instance, it may be costly to introduce new technology that increases work efficiency. 2 another hypothesis is that a shift in the structure of the economy towards a larger services sector has depressed productivity growth. during the pandemic,