Structural changes, migrations and labour mobility in the Catalan cork sector in the early 20th century

Based on the information provided in the registers of inhabitants of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Palafrugell and Palamós in 1930, the processes of emigration of workers from other towns are analysed. The transformations in the productive cork systems in the early 20th century facilitated the development of new factories of large dimensions, mechanised and with a more accentuated division of labour than that existing in the typical workshops of the previous century. The periodization of these migratory phenomena, origin, characteristics and elements of attraction of these three towns is analyzed; with the purpose of raising that the different characteristics of the factories of Sant Feliu de Guíxols propitiated the arrival of a profile of workers remarkably different from those arrived at the other two localities.