Somehow this drop in the jobless rate is not encouraging

Again, a statistic that can be spun multiple ways.

On the one hand, the jobless rate in the Inland Empire has dropped!

Yeah...it's dropped to 14.8%.

But wait...it gets better:

Unemployment, which had reached an all-time high of 15.1 percent in the Inland area in July, declined to 14.8 percent. The jobless rate declined because more than 9,000 people left the work force last month.

In an odd twist, net employment gains were registered by construction and shipping firms (or what John Husing called "the meat-and-potato sectors" for our region), while net employment losses were registered by government agencies.

Well, at least that's a good sign. If the net gains were being registered in the public sector rather than the private sector, I'd be more worried.