U.S.-based multinational companies increased their work forces at home by 0.1% in 2010 while expanding overseas employment by 1.5%, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

The modest expansion of the global companies' employment in the U.S. came in a year when the private sector as a whole shed 0.6% of its U.S. workers.

In all, U.S.-based multinationals account for about one-fifth of private employment in the U.S., with 23 million U.S. workers and 11 million in majority-owned affiliates overseas.

The government data is preliminary and often revised significantly. Detailed data, including a breakdown by industry, will be released later this year.

Since 1999, U.S.-based multinationals have cut U.S. employment by about 1 million, or roughly 4%, and added 3.1 million workers overseas, a 39% increase. Recently, though, the companies have been hiring both at home and abroad, but adding more jobs overseas. Between 2007 and 2010, they added 200,000 U.S. jobs and 600,000 outside the U.S., the government estimates.