Small Area Estimation and the Labour Market in Lombardy’s Industrial Districts: a Methodological Approach The aim of this study is to provide estimates of employment and unemployment for Lombardy’s industrial districts, which are under-represented in the Italian Labour Force Survey. The adoption of direct estimators should give rise to large standard errors owing to the small sample size of the areas investigated. The adoption of indirect estimators, which are crucially based on larger sample sizes, is a necessary step in order to produce more efficient estimations at the local area level. The results indicate that closer attention should be paid to unemployment both by introducing model-based estimations and by adopting more suitable auxiliary variables at the local area level. Keywords: Small Area Estimation, Industrial Districts JEL Classification Codes: C15, C42, R23