Upon rummaging through the St. Louis Fed’s excellent database, some global employment data items for review…

US manufacturing hourly earnings are in an uninterrupted up trend.  To think, all through this uptrend detached, abstracted Wall Street suits and associated media, who’ve never set foot on a shop floor sold a story that we don’t make anything in this country anymore (invest in financials and play the stock market instead!).

This has actually been the result of automation.  Fewer employees are more skilled in technology.  I don’t say ‘more skilled’, because being a real machinist for example, is a lost and under appreciated skill.

Canada’s general employment picture is good too.

Germany obviously does the heavy lifting in Europe, and its people are rewarded for it.  At least with respect to employment, when taken as a stand alone.  There are other internal pressures that stem from being part of the union.

France is a weight as employment goes nowhere.  Data is on a shorter span, but note the post-2008 difference to Germany.

Spain represents the PIIGS in unsurprisingly lagging fashion.

Finally, I guess that Japan is fighting the good monetary fight to get more people employed.  A problem with this is that a good portion of those paychecks are not going to meet household needs with the Yen being burned and asset prices (and costs) set to go much higher.