Corporations pushing for job-creation tax breaks shield U.S.-vs.-abroad hiring data

The Washington Post points us to a thought that needs to be included in public debate. (h/t Stormy)

Corporations pushing for job-creation tax breaks shield U.S.-vs.-abroad hiring data

Some of the country’s best-known multi­national corporations closely guard a number they don’t want anyone to know: the breakdown between their jobs here and abroad.

So secretive are these companies that they hand the figure over to government statisticians on the condition that officials will release only an aggregate number. The latest data show that multinationals cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009.

Some of the same companies that do not report their jobs breakdown, including Apple and Pfizer, are pushing lawmakers to cut their tax bills in the name of job creation in the United States.



Apple, by the way, is at the top or close to the top, in recent profits. GE has deceased its per centage of US workers from 54% to 46% in the last decade. Few contenders in the presidentail elections or Congressional elections make this notion a part of their campaigns. The debate in regular media usually stops at words like ‘protectionism’. The next time you read about tax cut money flowing to create jobs, hold in mind global trade demands that companies actually respond to, and do not think US jobs are a priority. The rhetoric merely implies a vague ideal…not company policies.

Perhaps multi-national companies need to be lean and mean to thrive, and raising the overall living standards of the world has trememdous benefits for people in general, and of course some problems that go with it. Just don’t think that election political rhetoric has US public benefit in mind overall as a priority high on the list.