The depression of 1911, the long decline just before and in the early part of the war, the low ebb during the war, the recovery beginning in 1919 and gaining momentum in 1920, the sharp decline in 1921, and the subsequent recovery in 1923, modified doubtless by the quota restrictions-all show up clearly on this chart.

Chart 23 furnishes the general picture of the war and post-war period. The details of the movement of migration from 1919 to 1923 are set forth more clearly in subsequent paragraphs.

TABLE 30.-CYCLES IN MALE IMMIGRATION: 1910-1924.

Three-month moving average of index corrected for seasonal variation: 1910=100

YEAR

JAN. FEB. MAR. APR. MAY JUNE JULY AUG. SEPT. OCT. Nov. DEC.

bFor the period subsequent to April, 1921, a special computation of the typical seasonal variation was made to allow for the change in the seasonal movement caused by the quota limit law.

Employment and Production Data in Post-War Period.

We have just noted that only certain elements in the migratory movement since the war have escaped material modification by non-economic forces. However, the statistical data concerning industrial conditions available for comparison are more nearly adequate than in any previous period. The years since the war have witnessed unusual activity in statistical compilation and analysis. New index numbers of employment, production, and the volume of trade have been developed; and while some of these have been extended back into earlier years, the data are most adequate for the period beginning with 1919. Also, we have in this period one severe depression period, affording an interesting basis for comparison with migratory movements.

Of the several indices of employment conditions in the years 1919 to 1923, one of the most significant for our purposes is the "labor market" index, described in the following paragraph.

Immigration and the State of the Labor Market.

For the years 1919 to 1923, the Federal Reserve Board has published an index of the state of the labor market, based upon the ratio of jobs to applicants in the operations of the public employment

CHART 24

CYCLES OF EMPLOYMENT AND OF MALE IMMIGRATION IN THE POSTWAR PERIOD: 1919-1923.

Deviations from the average for the period 1919-1922, seasonally

Numerical data in Table 31. The employment index is computed from the ratio of jobs to applicants in public employment offices in six states.

offices in six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin. In the period from July 1, 1918, to June 30, 1923, over half of the total number of immigrants named one of these six states as their intended destination. This index is of special interest, not only because the states in question are those to which a large proportion of newly arrived immigrants are destined, but also because the business of the public employment offices is with the common laborer to a large extent, and not only with factory labor but with construction labor as well.

1Federal Reserve Bulletin, February 1924, p. 87.

TABLE 31.-CYCLES IN THE LABOR MARKET AND IN MALE IMMIGRATION:

1919-1923

Percentage deviations from mean for 1919 to 1922, corrected for seasonal variation and expressed in multiples of their standard deviations.

Federal Reserve Bulletin, February, 1924, p. 87. Based upon the ratio of jobs to applicants in public employment offices.

bComputed from the index given in Table 30.

In Table 31 and Chart 24, the fluctuations of male immigration and of the labor market, as computed by the Federal Reserve Board, are compared. Both curves are corrected for typical seasonal variation, but not for trend, and are expressed in terms of the

standard deviation from the average of the four years, 1919-1922; hence the curves are useful only for the study of timing and not for comparing the volume of unemployment with the volume of migration.

Lag.

The male immigration curve, it will be noted, continues to rise for ten months after the employment curve begins to fall early in 1920. It is true there is a temporary slump in immigration in the early part of 1920, but it may be equally plausible to interpret this as a reflection of some of the erratic movements of 1919 rather than as a prompt reaction to the current decline in employment. On the downward swing of the cycle, although the evidence is less emphatic, immigration again seems to reach low ebb six or seven months later than the labor market, but on the upward movement, in the attainment of the 1923 high and the commencement of the subsequent decline, the labor market leads immigration by only a couple of months.

Doubtless the cyclical movement of migration after the middle of 1921 is influenced by the quota restrictions, but no small part of the immigration of these years came from Canada and Mexico, which are not subject to the quota limitations. In a subsequent section, we return to an examination of the movement of immigration from Canada.

Post-War Cyclical Movements in Male Emigration.

The post-war fluctuations in male emigration, as in immigration, are somewhat abnormal. In 1919 emigration increased, not so much because employment conditions were discouraging as because many who would otherwise have returned to Europe during the war years found in 1919 their first opportunity to revisit their native lands. In 1920 the emigrant movement declined somewhat from the high point reached toward the close of 1919 and the beginning of 1920, but this decline was temporarily checked by the depression of 1921. Since 1921, emigration has been consistently low, not only because of the industrial recovery from the depression conditions of 1921-1922, but also because of the fact that the restriction of the incoming flow, and the fear of those who are here that they may be unable to return readily if they once leave, combined with the deterring effect of unsettled political conditions and industrial depression in European countries, have kept emigration to a mini

mum.

The Comparative Volume of Migration and Changes in Employment in the Depression of 1921

The major depression of the post-war period is the depression of 1921. The recession phase of this period began in 1920, and the depression continued into 1922, but for the sake of brevity we shall designate it as the depression of 1921. The delimitation of its exact duration depends upon the slope of the trend assigned to the indexes of production and industrial activity, but the satisfactory determination of trends for the short period since the war is indeed difficult. In our index of factory employment in New York and Massachusetts, the cycle of employment reached its high point in March, 1920, declined thereafter to its lowest point in January, 1921, and remained below the estimated trend until December, 1922. Employment in the nine quarters from the first quarter of 1920 to the first quarter of 1922, inclusive, is covered by the special investigation conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research for the President's Conference on Unemployment. The computations made by Dr. W. I. King on the basis of this investigation give the estimated average number of employees in each quarter, not only in manufacturing but also in other major industries. The estimated total number employed in the extraction of minerals, construction, and manufacturing affords the best basis of comparison with migration. These are the industries in which the great bulk of new immigrants engage.

In Table 32 and Chart 25, Fig. A, are presented data concerning the change from quarter to quarter in the average number employed in the given industries and also the net additions to the alien male population of the United States in the same period, obtained by subtracting the recorded number of outgoing males, both emigrant and nonemigrant, from the recorded number of alien male arrivals, both immigrant and nonimmigrant. Each comparison, then, is between the net alien male migration in the given quarter and the increase or decrease from the previous quarter in the number employed.

Lag.

A sharp decline in employment appears in the fourth quarter of 1920, but arrivals continue to exceed departures through that and the following two quarters. Only in the last two quarters of 1921 does the net movement of male aliens show an excess of departures.