Before the 2007-08 Credit Crunch Crisis the United States was far behind the European Union, when it came to new job creation.

According to a Fortune article, from 1999 to 2008 the EU created 14 million new jobs, while the U.S. created 8 million.

On top of that, once the economy started down the drain the United States lost more jobs than were lost in the EU.  Percentage wise the EU and U.S. are around 9% unemployment (officially, unofficially the percentages are higher), but when you look at actual numbers the U.S. is leading the way down.  As of December 2010, the difference in job losses, between the EU and U.S., are about 7 million.