1. Defining Labour Market Areas (LMAs) in Bulgaria based on the EU method
/State of art of the project/
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

2. Project: Data collection for sub-national statistics: LMAs
Objective
Action plan (timetable)
Work done so far
First preliminary results
Currently ongoing work
Expected results
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

3. Objective  
Defining, for first time, Labour Market Areas (LMAs) in Bulgaria based on the EU (TTWA) method
Establishing a List of LMAs and their characteristics
Creating a LMAs map
Possible data compilation (statistics) at LMAs level
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

4. Action plan (timetable)
Project duration: 18 months (November April 2017)
Study EU TTWA method (12/ /2016)
Technical specification of the project
Eurostat studies, reports and documents from LMA TFs and WGMs
Countries practices
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

5. Action plan (timetable)
Feasibility assessment of the implementation of EU method (03/ /2016)
Input data sources and data availability
Variables definitions
Optimal 4 TTWA parameters - min and target values
Research on cross-border LMAs
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

6. Action plan (timetable)
Usage of IT tool - R script (05/ /2016)
Study the characteristics of the R script
Test the algorithm with pilot data
Run the program for the whole country
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

7. Action plan (timetable)
Producing a List of LMAs with their characteristics (07/ /2016)
Possible data compilation (statistics) at LMAs level (10/ /2016)
Creating a LMAs map (01/2017)
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

8. Action plan (timetable)
Dissemination and sharing the results (02/2017)
Preparation of printed information materials
Organization of one-day workshop
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

9. Extracting and analyzing input data
Work done so far
Study TTWA method & countries practices (Eurostat documentation; countries experience - UK, IT, BE, GR, ES)
Extracting and analyzing input data
Source: 2011 Census
Collection method: Direct and Internet; exhaustive
Data: Commuters; Employed persons (15+)
Level: LAU1 (264 municipalities)
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

10. Characteristics of LAU1 building block areas
Work done so far
Characteristics of LAU1 building block areas
Population (2014)
Area (km2)
Workers
Jobs
SSC (%)
DSC (%)
Min
629
44,4
167
178
40,0
30,5
Median
11298
348,7
3289
3086
86,0
91,8
Mean
27896
418,1
10731
82,8
88,6
Max
1353,9
624288
666853
98,8
99,5
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

11. Work done so far
Usage of R script
Study how to run R script (technical specification of the project & other documents)
Make clusters within selected NUTS3 (versions R1.1; R1.2 and R1.1.1)
Run the program for the whole country (versions R and R1.2) with TTWA default values of 4 parameters (minSZ=3.500; tarSZ=25.000; minSC=66.6%; tarSC=75.0%)
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

12. First preliminary results
Number of defined LMAs: 104
Number of non-contiguous LMAs: 3
Number of LAU1 per LMA:
Alignment to the administrative areas: 9 LMAs (8,7%) span across different districts (NUTS3)
Min=1
Median=2
Mean= 2,5
Max=11
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

13. Currently ongoing work
Adjusting non-contiguous parts of LMAs
Changing values of 4 TTWA parameters
Sensitivity analysis
Defining optimal set of 4 parameters
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016

14. LMAs list with their characteristics produced LMAs map created
Expected results
LMAs established
LMAs list with their characteristics produced
LMAs map created
LMAs statistics produced
IT tool (R script) adopted
Method used documented
Capacity built and popularization of results
Kick-off meeting on LMAs, Eurostat - 5 April 2016