1. The future of the LMAs from the Commission's perspective
Valeriya Angelova,
Eurostat Unit E4
LMAs project final meeting, 28 June 2017, Luxembourg

2. Content Achievements and conclusions of the 2016/2017 grant programme
Topics for the future
2.1 Targeting increase of the coverage and quality improvements
2.2 Addressing policy needs
How do you see the future?

3. Achievements and conclusions of the 2016/2017 grant programme (1/5)
Key words: harmonisation, full European coverage, transparency
The method is very sensitive to the quality of the input data
We are able now to assess the quality of the output

4. Achievements and conclusions of the 2016/2017 grant programme (2/5)
The R package LabourMarketAreas v. 3.0 significantly improved and freely available on Cran
The feasibility of the common method including for production of cross-border LMAs by ignoring the national borders has been proved
Experimental Labour Market data on LMAs has been produced and communicated

5. Achievements and conclusions of the 2016/2017 grant programme (3/5)
Guidelines on the whole process of LMAs design and production are publicly available to foster harmonisation
The harmonisation does not consist in the use of the same set of parameters or the same measure for recalculation of the commuting matrix (SMART vs CURDS) but in the use of a common method and definition

6. Achievements and conclusions of the 2016/2017 grant programme (4/5)
Based on the experience so far and the expanded network of 'LMAs' countries, the next step is to propose the use of the method to all MSs
Policy-makers see the LMAs concept as broadly applicable
Further communication of the concept is needed

7. Achievements and conclusions of the 2016/2017 grant programme (5/5)
All stakeholders identified the need to populate a LMAs' database with limited set of socio-economic indicators
The conclusion of the final Workshop in Rome was: from operational point of view the main objective for the future is to continue trying to produce data

8. Topics for the future (targeting increase of the coverage and quality improvements)
Trainings on R package designed for countries outside the stable group using LMAs
Testing of SAE and Big data for production of statistics at LMAs based on social surveys
Countries' partnerships for cross-border LMAs
Use of LMAs to optimise the samples of the social surveys => more effective production of official statistics

9. An innovative way to study LMAs
Statistics Belgium and Eurostat have worked with a Belgian telecommunications network operator to investigate the use of mobile phone data. Based on the use of the mobile phones at different time of the weekday by grid cells, each area was classified into one of three zones: residential where the number of connections was above average at night and below average during the day; work where the reverse situation was observed; commuting where there were two peaks (around 7.30 a.m. and 6 p.m.). Most of the country is made up of residential zones interspersed with a few working zones and commuting zones usually bridging these two.

10. Topics for the future (addressing policy needs)
Definition of Urban-rural LMAs
The Urban-rural partnership
Study of small and medium sized urban areas
Major economic conurbations
(requested by ESPON)

11. Topics for the future (addressing policy needs)
Definition of alternative LMAs
Discover commuting patterns (requested by MOVE)
LMAs by bus
LMAs by car

12. Topics for the future (addressing policy needs)
Other alternative LMAs
education mobility and skill mismatches (requested by EMPL)
High qualification
Low qualification

13. Topics for the future (addressing policy needs)
Over-bounded and under-bounded LMAs
way to improve sub-national employment and GDP data distorted by administrative boundaries (requested by REGIO)
potential of functional areas vs administrative willingness/tools to cooperate (requested by ESPON)
Industrial districts based on LMAs
maritime industrial districts (requested by MARE)
Over-bounded LMAs are much larger than the NUTS 3/metropolitan region; under-bounded LMAs are much smaller

14. Topics for the future (addressing policy needs)
Housing, labour markets and employment
DG EMPL is interested in analysis of the LMAs as Housing Market Areas

15. ? ? Outline of a future strategy for LMAs October 2017 Summer 2017
Analysis of the project results and further consultation with relevant DGs
Consultation with the WG ? ?
October 2017
Summer 2017

16. How do you see the way forward for LMAs at national and at EU level?

17. Thank you for the attention!
All related documents are available at Eurostat Collaboration in Research and Methodology for Official Statistics portal
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