1. The future of the Labour Market Areas doc: ESTAT/E4/2017/41
Valeriya Angelova,
Eurostat Unit E4
WG Regional, urban and rural development statistics
17 and 18 October 2017, Luxembourg

2. Contents Achievements and conclusions of the 2016/2017 grant programme
Potential options for the project follow-up
Results of the exchange of views

3. The 2016/2017 grant programme
7 NSIs worked for 18 months on the tasks included in the grants: PL, PT, HU, BG, IT, NL and FI
Countries working on harmonised LMAs without grants were DK, DE, FR and UK

4. Achievements of the grant programme
The R package LabourMarketAreas v. 3.0 significantly improved and freely available on Cran
Quality measures of the output of the algorithm were added into the R package
A SAS/IML (Interactive Matrix Language) procedure, which makes it possible to call R functions from SAS program has been drown up
There is still space for improvement; the fine-tuning does not work for cross-border data.

5. Achievements of the grant programme
The first version of the guidelines on the whole process of LMAs design and production are publicly available to guarantee the sustainability of the project’s results
All participating countries have produced their national LMAs
The feasibility of the common method including for production of cross-border LMAs has been demonstrated

6. Achievements of the grant programme
Experimental Labour Market data on LMAs has been produced and communicated (gender gap in employment and average annual gross wages, registered unemployment and unemployment according to the LFS, young and long-term unemployment)

7. Employed to working age population ratio in 2011
Registered unemployed to working age population ratio in 2011
Employed to working age population ratio in 2011

8. Share of people with secondary level educational attainment, 2011

9. Gender gap for the employment rate (15-64) by LMAs in 2015

10. Achievements of the grant programme
Series of scientific publications on LMAs at the MSs
Several workshops, seminars and a training in Rome, Paris and Luxembourg for knowledge exchange
On-line library on the cros portal containing all papers related to LMAs
The publications include an e-book with an input from Eurostat and papers in the Statistical Journal of the IAOS.

11. Conclusions of the final meeting
Policy-makers see the LMAs concept as broadly applicable
Further communication of the concept to national and European stakeholder is needed

12. Conclusions of the final meeting
The method is very sensitive to the quality of the input data
Registered data, even with higher geographical resolution, not always gives better results than Census data and should be used cautiously
The main challenge is to decide on the optimal set of parameters
On comparability is still work to be done – the number of LMAs obtained varies from 25 in PT to over 600 in IT

13. Conclusions of the final meeting
Cross-border LMAs - missing components of the commuting matrix and different geo-coding systems used in different countries
Big data, administrative data and Small Area Estimation are some of the opportunities for the future
All stakeholders identified the need to populate a LMAs' database with limited set of socio-economic indicators

15. Following up the final meeting, Eurostat did an assessment of the project's results based on several examples and considered the grant programme as a great success
Many thanks for all your efforts and the good job!

16. Alternatives for the future of the LMAs
Close the project
LMAs as a 'tool kit'
LMAs as new territorial typology
'In-House LMAs''

17. Option A: No explicit follow-up actions
Weaknesses
The potential use of LMAs for territorial analysis could not be harvested
Other typologies related to the labour market such as FUAs and metropolitan regions do not aim at full coverage of the territory
Strengths
No additional efforts and resource requirements for the NSIs and Eurostat
Other operational typologies: Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) and their approximation, namely the metropolitan regions
The interested NSIs still can continue working on LMAs.
Threats
Stakeholders with unmet data needs
Opportunities
Resources of Eurostat and the NSIs could focus on the established territorial typologies

18. Option B: Creating LMAs as operational service in a joint ESS initiative
Weaknesses
Further input and resources are required both by Member States and Eurostat
The demand for LMAs as a new territorial typology is not yet fully proven
Strengths
IT solution, methodological papers, guidelines, quality assessment and lessons learned are available to be reused
Opportunities
Recommendations from Eurostat for specific parameters to different classes of regions
Larger scale of LMAs
The NSIs have more detailed data and knowledge of the territory to validate the results
Threats
Policy-making users may not be interested/lose interest in the LMAs as data on other well-established typologies are already available.
As population density, the transport network and the geography are determining the LMAs in all countries for which the results have been assessed, different sets of parameters to be applied to different classes of regions EU-wide (e.g. urban, rural, intermediate, remote, mountain and island regions). Eurostat will provide recommendations for parameters to be used for delineation of LMAs in different types of territories.
If this is the alternative preferred by the Working Group, it could be implemented as a continuation of the Task Force. It would require a real interest from the part of the NSIs.

19. Option C: The project results on LMA analysis purely as a national 'tool kit'
Weaknesses
Results cannot be used at European level due to lack of comparability
The visibility outside the national scale will be very limited
Strengths
The LMA concept can be fully adjusted to the particular national purposes
Means as well as resources are fully determined by the NSIs and in line with the national requirements
Threats
Confusion due to the use of national and EU methodology
The countries that tested the methodology for a first time could consider it as one-off exercise
Lack of co-operation and absence of common platform
This option is resembling the option A in the sense that the project will be terminated as a European project. Thus there will not be an attempt to create a common European-wide data set.
Opportunities
Reuse of freely available tools and documentations
Methodological support from Eurostat
Having more detailed data NSIs will be able to produce alternative LMAs

20. Option D: Calculation as a Eurostat service with national data as input
Weaknesses
The knowledge will not be further spread
It would be very difficult to take particular geographic circumstances into consideration without the collaboration of the MSs.
Strengths
No burden for the NSIs
Eurostat monitors more easily the work of the contractor or the internal work
Well established network of experts; reusable sources
Threats
Full coverage of the commuting data is needed
NSI could be opposed to an EU managed typology of their territory or not accept/use the results
Eurostat launches a pilot project to produce LMAs for the countries that do not have such geographies. This implementation of the proposed method should be done with the help of an external contractor. The NSIs will be allowed to apply as tenderer. Further grants are not foreseen.
As an input, the 2011 Census commuting data (or registered data) from the MSs at LAU-2 or LAU-1 level will be needed. The results will be revised after the next Census (after that the work will continue in line with the post 2020 Census strategy). Eurostat will not aim at additional data provision requests
If this is the option preferred by the Working Group, Eurostat will need to prepare a budget for Nevertheless, Eurostat could already work on that solution before a contractor would get into action, for instance by collecting already the commuting matrices.
Opportunities
Recommendations from Eurostat for specific parameters to different classes of regions
Further experiments
EU geometry in the RCI
Dissemination of summary statistics

21. Possible solution's description

22. Results of the exchange of views
Most of countries that answered agreed that the work on LMAs should continue
4 preferences for Option B, 2 for C and 2 for D
Notes of criticism
'Statistics Denmark is worried about the apparent reduction in confidence of Eurostat in the Labour Market Area concept.'
France: 'The four options proposed don't seem to be able to satisfy the real needs of LMA at European Level for all MS.'

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