Here is how to think about the July jobs numbers that the government released Friday morning: Whatever you thought about the economy, or financial markets or the proper course of Federal Reserve policy at 8:29 a.m., just before the numbers were released, you have every reason to have also believed it at 8:31 a.m., just after.

Employers added 215,000 jobs last month, but the average over the last six months is 213,000. The unemployment rate was 5.3 percent, but that was the same as in June. The proportion of the population working was unchanged, as was the proportion of Americans in the labor force. And average hourly earnings rose 0.2 percent, exactly what forecasters had expected.