Most of the time, the release of monthly employment numbers is important because the figures tell us something about Americans’ prospects for finding a job, whether the economy is slowing down or speeding up, and perhaps what the Federal Reserve is likely to do at coming meetings.

But with the election a month away, the jobs report takes on extra significance, as a piece of major economic news that might shape how people vote for president. So looking at the data through a political lens makes perfect sense.

And the new results — that the unemployment rate ticked up to 5 percent as the nation added 156,000 jobs in September — point to an economy that is on a steady course. The numbers are good enough that Hillary Clinton can argue that the economy continues to improve: The number of people in the labor force rose by 444,000, a good sign that some of the people who left the job market in recent years have returned. Average hourly wages are up a solid 2.6 percent over a year ago.

Yet the results are still soft enough that Donald J. Trump has plenty of ground for attack on the state of the economy as the Obama administration nears its end: There is that uptick in the unemployment rate, the 156,000 jobs added are no great shakes, a broader measure of unemployment remains at 9.7 percent, and the ratio of Americans working remains significantly lower than eight years ago.