FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Euro zone productivity growth remained weak in the third quarter despite a modest expansion in the bloc's economy, continuing a poor run that has lasted years, data from Eurostat showed on Friday.

Per capita productivity was unchanged compared to the same quarter a year earlier while it expanded by 0.5% based on hours worked, or at about half the rate of overall economic growth, Eurostat said.

Productivity growth has been especially weak since the pandemic and a large gap has opened between Europe and the U.S., driven by a host of factors that could persist.

Europe is struggling with an excessive reliance on expensive, imported energy, inefficient labour markets, fragmented regulation and reliance on exports in a period of deglobalisation.

The euro zone's economy expanded by 0.4% on the quarter, unchanged from a previous estimate, while employment was up 0.2%, also in line with a preliminary figure.

But there is little to suggest a sustainable recovery with industry still in recession, exports weak, investments muted and households continuing to keep consumption down and opting to save their cash instead.

Still, there appears to be a modest improvement in productivity, which reached its lowest level a year ago and has now turned positive, at least based on hours worked.

A key issue for the ECB-POLICY-RATES-82f6314e-6203-420b-bc8b-70a978546822>ECB-POLICY-KAZIMIR-00b06d9b-4b99-46ce-a2aa-458d8eb2d993>ECB-POLICY-RATES-82f6314e-6203-420b-bc8b-70a978546822>ECB is that poor productivity growth puts upward pressure on prices and makes it harder for the European Central Bank to steer price growth back to its 2% target.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Christina Fincher)