Labour Market Area Simulations LAMAS Labour Market Area Simulations

Aims Functional breakdown of the EU territory Taking into account extent of major (urban) labour market areas For analytical purposes Based on existing NUTS3 regions Based on existing functional concepts whenever possible

National Labour Market Areas (LMAs) National definitions in 12 Member States Methodologies and average size of LMAs vary Size in many cases substantially smaller than NUTS3 regions Eurostat and REGIO have collected the geometry of the nationally defined LMAs

LMAs: available geometry

LMAs

Metro Regions Regions representative of the major urban agglomerations Major agglomerations: Larger Urban Zones (LUZ - as defined for the Urban Audit) with more than 250 000 inhabitants Extent of the Larger Urban Zones is functional: based on commuting to the central city

NUTS2 and NUTS3

Metro Regions

Determining the LAMAS Metro regions are considered as LAMAS Effect: merging of NUTS3 regions in major urban areas, especially where NUTS3 regions are relatively small Outside the metro regions, nationally defined LMAs are considered if they correspond to groupings of NUTS3 regions Effect: merging of NUTS3 regions in Germany, and to a lesser extent in Belgium and the Netherlands

LAMAS

LAMAS compared to NUTS3 regions Number of regions 1303 1012 Average population 378 000 459 000

Conclusions National Labour Market Areas are defined in sometimes radically different ways The EU LAMA Simulations are more functional than NUTS-3 regions, but are not pure labour market areas either. Consider a study on defining EU labour market areas according to a single methodology managed by Eurostat in close cooperation with DG REGIO

NUTS2 and NUTS3

Metro Regions

LMAs

LAMAS