Sometimes, the monthly employment numbers seem to come out of left field, and don’t really align with all the other evidence about how the economy is evolving. December is not one of those months.

To the contrary, pretty much everything in the latest numbers released Friday fits the broader story. It’s a mostly benign picture, though not without some challenges.

Job creation was steady, with employers adding 145,000 jobs in December. It’s a far cry from the revised 256,000 jobs added in November. But the lower number is more consistent with recent growth in G.D.P. and an economy that appears closer to full employment than it has in two decades.

Employers have added an average of 184,000 jobs a month over the last three months. If sustained over 2020, the pace would be about the same as in 2016 and 2017 — not an acceleration from recent trends but also perfectly fine.