The EU narrowed the productivity gap with the US last year for the first time in well over a decade, the European commission reported today.

Driven by significant improvements in Germany, growth in output per worker last year rose to 1.5% in the EU's 27 countries, outpacing that of the world's most competitive economy where productivity was up 0.9%.

But senior commission officials cautioned that the bulk of the productivity gain could be attributed to the cyclical upturn in the economy since 2005 and the bloc still lagged behind the US in key sectors such as wholesale and retail trade, real estate, ICT and to a lesser extent in financial services.

"We simply don't have enough evidence to confirm a general trend reversal," they said. "The evidence for a structural and, therefore, durable pick-up in productivity growth remains scant to date."