Identifying Functional Labor Market Areas in New Zealand: A Reconnaissance Study Using Travel-to-Work Data

Abstract

To date, analysis of the spatial dimension of New Zealand labor markets has been limited to administrative, rather than appropriately-defined functional, geographic units. This paper presents a preliminary classification of New Zealand into local labor market areas using area unit travel-to-work data from the 1991 Census of Population and Dwellings and drawing on the regionalization method of Coombes, et al. (1986). After assessing the robustness of the preferred set of local labor market areas, the paper provides some illustrative labor market statistics for these zones. Migration between labor market areas is most likely to be accompanied by changes in job, whereas moves within a labor market are largely assumed to be non-work motivated. As a result, this study provides a more appropriate spatial unit of analysis than any administrative classification for studying migration at a subnational level.

Keywords: Geographic Labor Mobility, Regional Migration, Regional Labor Markets

JEL Classification: J61, R12, R23