Even with an improving economy leading to some degree of job creation, there are now roughly 5 job candidates available for every job that opens.

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Among the important things that were discussed is the degree to which McMoRan is leading the charge in the development of the Ultra Deep play in the Gulf of Mexico.

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His point: America has fallen from leading the pack to No. 9 in the proportion of young people with a college degree.

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What I didn't know was that those steps -- leading to the lofty highlight of my Kumano Kodo pilgrimage -- would be on a 70-degree incline.

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The ratio is closely watched because as Ferrarone notes it shows a high degree of correlation to the year-over-year change in the OECD leading indicators, which in turn closely corresponds to market returns.

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