Furthermore, there is no complete clearing house system for employment; and even if the outgoing stream equals the incoming in volume, the time lost in adjusting the new immigrant to a job aggravates the unemployment situation.

The International Aspect.

Particularly if the needs of two or more countries—the country or countries of emigration and the country or countries of immigration are taken into consideration, it becomes evident that migration as it occurs is not, and scarcely can be, a consistently beneficial factor in its relation to cyclical unemployment. We have seen that to a large extent low employment occurs concurrently in the country of emigration and the country of immigration. In such periods it becomes virtually impossible for migration to ameliorate employment conditions in the one country without aggravating them in the other. If the emigrant leaves when industry is slack in his old home, he arrives in his new home when unemployment is likewise prevalent; and if he arrives when employment conditions are good, he ordinarily leaves his former home when the opportunities for employment are at their best.

Possible Indirect Effect Upon the Severity of Business Cycles. Our analysis would be incomplete if we failed to mention the not inconsiderable probability that the inflow of large numbers of new workers into the United States in times of prosperity has been a factor in increasing the intensity of boom periods and consequently the severity of the subsequent depression. Our analysis is not of a nature to prove directly the relation just suggested; it merely indicates the existence in periods of prosperity of a large volume of new additions to the labor supply, which would make possible an intensified expansion of industry and, by tending to keep wages down, render less effective one of the possible checks to such expansion-namely, rising costs of production.

A further probable effect of migration which is suggested but not directly demonstrated by the data under examination is the aggravation of the turnover in industry, whether immigration is balanced by emigration or not; for it is constantly necessary to fit the new arrivals into jobs vacated by the departing aliens or by native workers crowded into other occupations, aside, of course, from those instances where the new arrivals take up work for which no labor force has previously been organized.

Summary.

In brief, whatever may be the basic causes of migration, there is a close relation between the cyclical oscillations of employment and those of immigration and emigration, and a moderately close resemblance in the respective seasonal fluctuations, with considerable reason to believe that this similarity, particularly in the cyclical oscillations, is due to a sensitiveness of migration to employment conditions.

With reference to the extent to which migration is responsible for seasonal unemployment, the facts presented in the preceding chapter lead us to be cautious in stating the general tendency. Prior to the Great War, the distribution of net migration was moderately well adjusted to seasonal changes in employment in those industries in which the newly arrived immigrants most frequently engaged. Hence, unless the availability of immigrant labor accounts in part for the development of seasonal tendencies in production-a point which cannot be proved, or at least has not been proved, by our method of analysis—it is not clear that unrestricted immigration materially aggravated the seasonal variations in unemployment.

However, after the introduction of the quota principle of restriction, with provisions which tend to modify the seasonal movement in immigration, it would appear that although the flow of immigrants is reduced in volume its distribution by months is now less likely than formerly to be well adjusted to the seasonal variations in employment.

As to cyclical fluctuations in unemployment, it would appear that, directly at least, migration is probably not a primary cause of such variations in unemployment; and that in some instances it is an ameliorative influence, in that in limited portions of depression periods it is withdrawing more workers than it is contributing. More frequently, however, it is a contributory factor to the evils of unemployment. This conclusion is based in part upon the fact that the timing of migration changes to cyclical changes in employment is imperfect; and secondly, upon the fact that the peaks and troughs of industrial activity frequently coincide in the countries of immigration and of emigration, in which case migration cannot be well adjusted to conditions in both countries. Also, although a decline in employment is usually followed by a decline in immigration, the incoming stream does not dry up entirely, and in those portions of depression periods in which there is a net immigration—

a not uncommon phenomenon-migration is feeding into industry more men than it is taking out. Lastly, the very fact of a known source of additional labor available through increased immigration in boom periods probably has lessened the pressure for regularization of industry.

Compiled from U. S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance, June, 1903, p. 4362, which gives quarterly data from July, 1857 to June, 1903, inclusive. bComputed from full quarterly data before they were reduced to thousands.

TABLE II-MALE IMMIGRANTS, BY MONTHS: 1892-1924.
(Thousands of Immigrants)

YEAR TOTAL

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

Nov. DEC.

1914

1910 748.1 36.9 44.5 110.2 104.6 96.7 72.1 47.2 49.9 1911 488.2 24.1 28.7 60.5 69.9 60.8 42.9 29.3 28.4 33.6 37.5 35.7 36.8 1912 674.6 24.9 30.1 66.9 71.2 75.8 59.8 49.9 53.2 66.1 68.1 60.0 48.6 1913 936.0 30.8 40.4 69.2 99.7 97.4 124.8 94.7 84.6 87.0 82.9 65.6 59.0 439.5 28.5 30.8 67.1 87.9 69.8 40.9 32.9 21.5 17.1 16.6 14.8

51.4 50.1 47.3

37.3

11.6

1920 414.1 17.3 18.3 24.7 30.2 32.4 38.7 37.0 38.7 43.1 46.6 41.7 45.5 1921 290.2 37.2 32.9 35.1 32.4 36.2 23.1 17.0 18.1 16.6 14.9 15.8 11.0 1922 203.9 8.2 5.7 7.9 9.5 12.1 13.1 23.0 23.8 26.8 28.8 26.5 18.4 1923 460.4 16.6 18.9 29.5 33.9 33.6 27.6 53.5 54.5 53.4 50.8 54.3 33.9 1924 203.8 20.8 18.0 22.7 22.6 18.6 20.2 6.6 13.1 15.1 14.4 16.2 15.4

The monthly data for July 1892 to June 1905, inclusive are compiled from the U. S. Bureau of Statics, Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance; for the remainder of the period they are from the publications or records of the U. S. Bureau of Immigration.

Monthly statistics of immigration by sex are not available prior to July, 1892.

In 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1905, and 1906, the totals of the monthly figures for male immigrants, when added to similar statistics of female immigrants also compiled by the U. S. Bureau of Statistics, give totals differing somewhat from the official totals published by the U. S. Bureau of Immigration.