2._ MIGRATION AND BUSINESS CYCLES 
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 immigra- 
tion—are taken into consideration, it becomes evident that mi- 
gration 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 concur- 
rently 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 ag- 
gravating them in the other. If the emigrant leaves when industry 
is slack in his old home, he arrives in his new home when unem- 
ployment 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 in- 
dicates 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 ex- 
pansion—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 ag- 
gravation 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. 
“49