After a worrisome August jobs report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning that the economy added 248,000 jobs in September, beating expectations of 215,000. The unemployment rate also fell to 5.9 percent, the lowest it’s been in six years.

But just as there was no reason to freak out after August’s subpar numbers, we shouldn’t celebrate too much with Friday’s report as well. Wages still aren't growing and millions of Americans are still looking for work. In addition, monthly reports are notoriously noisy. A better way to look at the data is through the three-month moving average:

As you can see, the economy certainly has strengthened over the past six months and is in better shape. We are consistently adding more than 200,000 jobs a month. Even better, the July and August reports were revised up a combined 69,000. In addition, long-term unemployment—those unemployment for more than 27 weeks—continued its long, slow decline, but is still near three million.

It wasn’t all good news though. The labor force participation rate declined slightly to 62.7 percent from 62.8 percent. That’s the lowest it’s been since the late 1970s. Economists are still debating how much of this decline is the result of long-term structural forces—like baby boomers retiring—or cyclical ones that will draw workers back into the labor force as the economy improves.

It’s an important question that has significant implications for monetary policy. If the decline in the participation rate is largely structural, that means workers won’t reenter the labor force even as the economy strengthens. In that scenario, the current unemployment rate of 5.9 percent is an accurate indicator of the health of the labor market and we will reach full employment in the near future. If this is true, then the Federal Reserve should raise interest rates soon to prevent moderate inflation.