In a vacuum, the latest numbers on the job market are pretty solid, even good.

Most important, while the overall unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.7 percent for August, there was real improvement in the details underneath that number: A whopping 571,000 more Americans were part of the labor force, and the share of adults who were working rose 0.2 percent.

The Labor Department’s report on Friday showed there was an even stronger rise in the share of prime working-age adults who were working, to 80 percent — up from 79.5 percent in July and the highest level in more than 12 years.

And worker pay rose a strong 0.4 percent, suggesting that employers are having to pay up to attract those workers. Over the last year, average hourly earnings were up 3.2 percent, which is something of a sweet spot: Pay is rising faster than consumer prices are, meaning American workers’ incomes are rising, yet not so fast as to raise alarm bells about inflation at the Federal Reserve.

And while the rate of job creation slowed — employers added only 130,000 jobs (25,000 of those being temporary census hiring), and earlier months were revised downward — those numbers are more consistent with a slowing pace of growth than an imminent recession.