Luxembourg, 30 August 2013

Task force

harmonised Labour Market Areas

1.Introduction

Over the years, Eurostat has accumulated anotable set of regional statistics, covering many economic and social patterns. For the production of regional statistics in the EU, EFTA and Candidate countries NUTS is the single uniform breakdown of territorial units. As one of its most crucial features, NUTS is based on the national administrative structures of Member States, thus facilitating data collection, interpretation and usage for policy-making.

However, with increasing mobility and growing European integration administrative boundaries tend to be seen less and less as functional barriers both on subnational and national level. In addition, administrative structures vary substantially within the EU and historical boundaries often cut territories that grown together for socioeconomic reasons.

To analyse, escort and steer such tendencies, several countries have followed also a different concept of territorial breakdown that of “functional regions”, in particular labour market areas (LMA). LMA are essentially self-contained poles of local labour markets built by the aggregation of several neighbouring building blocks. The aggregation is based on regular (daily/weekly) travel flows from place of residence to place of work. This alternative approach to territorial breakdowns is gaining in importance for analytical purposes and the demand for such data on the part of policy-makers is increasing.

2.Background

When the possibility and need for an additional NUTS level 4 was discussed in the 2006 Regional and Urban Statistics Working Group at Eurostat, several Member States expressed a strong wish to go beyond administrative boundaries and to look at alternative territorial divisions, rather than extend the detail based on administrative units.

In addition, governments in several Member States already use LMA for reporting official statistics and implementing certain policies. However, LMA definitions depend in a number of countries heavily upon research by academics. This is one of the reasons for that applied approaches differ from country to country.

Therefore, Eurostat committed itself to explore the domain of functional regions and a possible application of that concept to the entire EU. In October 2011 Eurostat started to investigate with the help of the research community the value-added, feasibility and best practices of a harmonised approach for LMAs in the EU (Study on comparable LMAs[1]).

NSIs have been very helpful in providing the necessary methodological explanations and clarifications concerning official or non-official national LMAs as well as data for the spatial analysis. In September 2012 the researchers have delivered the draft final research report presenting the findings and conclusions of one year of research. In the report the contractor investigated different concepts and practices over Europe and outlined supporting reasons and practicalityissues for establishing an EU wide harmonised grid of comparable LMA.The final report was presented to the Member States in the 2012 Regional and Urban Statistics Working Group meeting.

3.Mandate

Owing the outstanding interest shown by Member States and in order to make tangible progress on the methodological issues Eurostat announced in the 2012 Regional and Urban Statistics Working Group meeting the creation of a new Task Force on harmonised LMA.

In the Task Force NSIs and Eurostat shall intensively discuss the results of the study in order to make an official proposal of the Commissions position on harmonised LMAs.The Task Force will report the results to the Working Party on Regional Statistics and Rural Development and seek the endorsement of the results by the Working Group.

4.Scope

A harmonised methodology based on latest available commuting data shall be identified for the entire EU. The creation of international LMAs shall be supported if the necessary data is available.

5.Objectives

The Task Force on harmonised LMA shall address following issues:

  • Discuss and draft a common NSI-Eurostat position on the findings of the Study on comparable LMA including a methodological appraisal of the approach presented in the paper.
  • Draft a methodological paper on the method of the establishment, management and regular update of the LMAs.
  • Evaluate ways and means for a harmonised EU wide definition of LMA. Assess the expectable acceptance by non-participating countries.
  • Prepare for an official proposal for a harmonised methodology including guidelines, best practices and recommendations for EU wide harmonised LMAs.

6.Work plan

1st Meeting: 18 November 2013

2nd Meeting: 24 February 2014

3rd Meeting: 16 June 2014

6. Members

The Task Force will be chaired by Eurostat and shall be composed of methodology experts in the field of Labour Market Areas (or other functional regions) from NSIs. It shall preferably include at least two delegates from countries with already mature LMA methodology and two delegates from countries with no official methods but interested in adopting a common EU approach. In addition, both small, medium sized and large Member States shall be represented; a north-south and east-west balance among the participating countries shall be also envisaged.

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[1]Please find the final report of the Study on comparable LMAs in the annex to this document.