Emploi, mobilité et chômage en France : migrations saisonnières entre industrie et agriculture

Mobility and Unemployment in Mid-Nineteenth Century France. The Seasonal Migrations between Industry and Agriculture. ; ; Seasonal migrations between industry and agriculture were widespread in France until late in the nineteenth century. The scattering of manufacturing firms across the country, regardless of the local conditions of employment and wages, made competition intense between the two sectors in summer when wages were generally higher in agriculture than they were in industry. According to their economic situation, plants reacted in dif erent fashions to the threat of seasonal quits, still, in the 1860's, those who let the workers leave in summer employed around one-third of the industrial labour force. This article examines the conditions and the impact for each sector of such an important temporary migration which took place mainly at local level At wider stage it was also significant but failed to unify agricultural wages and allowed a coexistence of both employment tightness and partial unemployment areas.