Stability of functional labour market regions

The number of commuters and the distances of home-to-work travel have increased in recent decades. Based on a previous study that proposed a new approach for delineating functional labour market regions, this paper focuses on the temporal stability of delineations of labour market regions in Germany. In a comparison of the best delineations among pooled groups of three years beginning in 1993, regions are classified as core regions, related regions or overlapping regions. The main finding is that regions surrounding important labour market centres form stable labour markets. Over time, most employees belong to the same labour market region or parts of it.