Interstate Industrial Migration as Reflected in Claims for Unemployment Compensation Filed in 1939

T H E I N T E R S T A T E M O V E M E N T of industr ia l workers has long been an accepted factor in our American economy. I n the nineteenth century Paul B u n y a n , the m y t h i c a l lumberjack, and John H e n r y , the rai lroad worker, moved f rom State to State along w i t h the miners who were fo l lowing the discovery of new veins of ore, the journeymen printers and carpenters who found jobs wherever they settled, and the clerks and storekeepers who went West to make their fortunes. Recently the movement of industr ia l workers was almost completely overshadowed b y the mass exodus of the Joads and their neighbors, the ruined farmers and sharecroppers, who wandered up and down b o t h coasts looking for f a r m w o r k . The nonagricult u r a l worker , however, was also ever on the move. I n some instances, t rave l was par t of his j o b — t h e travel ing salesman, the circus performer, the telephone l ineman, or the hotel worker fo l lowing vacationists n o r t h i n the summer and south in the winter . I n other instances he moved irregular ly , t o get a better j ob or because he had lost his o ld job . He was then either looking for w o r k i n a place where he thought he would have a better chance to find i t , or he was going home where i t wou ld no t cost so much to l ive . The demand for workers under the defense program has brought about a new group of industr ia l migrants , constantly increasing i n number. B u i l d ing huge A r m y cantonments requires thousands of construction workers ; new gun factories and other industr ia l plants draw their labor force f rom the N a t i o n as a whole, once the local sources of labor are exhausted. According to a congressional committee, i t is estimated t h a t a m i n i m u m of 2 m i l l i o n workers w i l l move to defense centers and the t o t a l of defense migrants m a y approach 5 mi l l i on when the defense program swings i n t o f u l l product ion . 1 As a result of the operation of the unemploym e n t compensation system, in format ion has accumulated under the interstate benefit-payment plan as to the numbers and movements of covered industr ia l workers who filed out-of-state claims dur ing 1939, a period before the defense program became fu l ly operative.