1. Labour Market Area Simulations
LAMAS
Labour Market Area Simulations

2. 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

3. 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

4. LMAs: available geometry

5. LMAs

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

7. NUTS2 and NUTS3

9. Metro Regions

10. 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

11. LAMAS

12. LAMAS compared to NUTS3 regions
Number of regions
1303
1012
Average population

13. 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

14. NUTS2 and NUTS3

15. Metro Regions

16. LMAs

17. LAMAS