At first glance, a drop in unemployment to 9.7% and the “creation” of 431,000 during the month of May looks like excellent economic news. You’d expect the markets to rally in response and the president to immediately take credit for pulling us out of recession. So then why is the Dow Jones down more than 200 points and the president relatively silent? Look closer.

While 431,000 jobs were “created” in May, 411,000 can be directly attributed to the 2010 Census. You know, the survey that only takes place every ten years, and the employer who will lay off just about every employee by the end of the year. As you can imagine, those jobs aren’t considered stable sources of income.

As for the private sector, just 41,000 jobs were created. That’s a significant drop from last month’s private sector job creation, totaling about 224,000. In short, hiring in the private sector is falling while jobs in the public sector are temporary at best.

Now, what about this drop in unemployment? Remember that unemployment is a measure of the work force — not the population at large — that is currently unable to find employment. When people drop out of the work force — meaning they actually stop looking for a job — that number drops. And that’s what happened today. 322,000 Americans decided to stop looking for a job entirely over the month of May.

And now you can understand why the markets are responding with sell-offs. Today’s news hardly shows a stable, growing work force. On the contrary, we’re creating fewer private sector jobs and have more people giving up entirely on finding a job. How’s that Hope-n-Change working out for you?