Coombes, Mike, Casado-Díaz, José M.
The evolution of Local Labour Market Areas in contrasting regions
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10045/2548
DOI: 
ISSN: 
Abstract: 
In many local labour markets across Europe and elsewhere, a rapidly growing
minority of workers are making long commuting trips. One consequence for
research into journey-to-work flows which seeks to identify the boundaries of local
labour market areas (LLMAs), is that these boundaries represent a ‘snap shot’ of an
increasingly volatile pattern. In fact, it remains an unmet challenge for regional
science to represent the way commuting patterns are evolving. Is it sufficient to
simply update maps, using a consistent method which is then applied to successive
‘snap-shot’ datasets? This approach will be illustrated in contrasting regions. On the
other hand, are there alternative forms of analysis better able to identify areas where
change has been greater – or less – than elsewhere? The paper will end with some
explorations in pursuit of this aim.
Keywords:Local labour markets, Travel-to-work, Commuting, Functional areas, Mobility, United Kingdom, Spain, Valencia, TTWAs, Census of Population
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