Labor market area

Commuting flows are a primary consideration in defining and delineating labor market areas. The extent to which workers are willing and able to commute between two places indicates the degree of economic integration between those places. The division of a country into labor market areas is widely used in statistical analyses and cartographic representations. The space is subdivided in such a way that spatial and temporal comparisons between units that are as similar as possible are possible.

United States

In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) maintains standard definitions of labor market areas for the purpose of standardization and to promote comparability of the labor force information used by various government programs. Definitions are updated annually, and the entire system of definitions is reevaluated once each decade based on decennial census data. BLS uses metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, including metropolitan divisions, as its principal basis for defining labor market areas. In New England, labor market area definitions are based on New England city and town areas rather than the county-based statistical areas used in other parts of the country. For geographic areas outside of metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, the BLS identifies labor market areas based primarily on commuting data, with a requirement that all components of a labor market area be contiguous.