Many givng up looking for work

At first I thought this would be good news.
The headline : "Unemployment falls in 37 states in May"
But then the subheading : "But most of the declines came as people gave up searching for work"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37779938/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

By Martin Crutsinger
updated 5:00 p.m. ET, Fri., June 18, 2010

WASHINGTON - A majority of states saw their unemployment rates drop in May. But the widespread declines were mainly because people gave up work searches and were no longer counted.

The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate fell in 37 states and the District of Columbia. Six states had increases and seven saw no change.

Forty-one states and the District of Columbia saw a net increase in jobs. But that reflected national data showing a huge gain because of government hiring of temporary census workers.

----- (skipping)

Nationally, the unemployment rate dropped to 9.7 percent in May from 9.9 percent in April. But the drop was largely because hundreds of thousands of jobless people stopped searching for work.

A total of 431,000 new jobs were added across the country in May, the biggest gain in a decade. Still, the surge came from 411,000 temporary census jobs. Private-sector job growth slowed significantly.

----- (skipping)

..