It's The Off-shoring, Stupid!

Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2012: Thirty-five big U.S.-based multinational companies added jobs much faster than other U.S. employers in the past two years, but nearly three-fourths of those jobs were overseas, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

Those companies, which include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., International Paper Co., Honeywell International Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc., boosted their employment at home by 3.1%, or 113,000 jobs, between 2009 and 2011, the same rate of increase as the nation's other employers. But they also added more than 333,000 jobs in their far-flung—and faster-growing— foreign operations. ...

Wage convergence between the West and the rest still has a way to go.

Meantime:

One in two new US graduates jobless or underemployed

Spanish unemployment hits a new high of 24.5%.

The US Economy slows

Falling US home prices drag new buyers under water

Eurozone Retail Sales Plunge

Canadian employment withers

and ...

But it would be as tedious as it would be easy to go on, and on, and on.