Today’s awful job figures crossed the wires just as I was mulling a post on how the Fed’s policy of pumping money into the bond market—a.k.a. quantitative easing—was showing signs of working. Over the past couple of weeks, a number of indicators have suggested that the economy is picking up a bit: purchases of cars and trucks have jumped significantly, retailers posted solid sales over Thanksgiving, and consumer confidence has rebounded. Even the bombed-out housing market—a direct beneficiary of Fed policy, which is largely aimed at keeping down mortgage rates—has shown signs of life: the number of home sales jumped last month. The U.S. economics team at Goldman Sachs, which has been one of the most pessimistic on Wall Street, just upgraded its forecast for G.D.P. growth in 2011 from 2.0 per cent to 2.7 per cent. That’s still not a great figure—after a recession, economies often expand at a rate of four or five per cent for a couple of years—but the upgrade was a signal that worries of a “double dip” recession were receding.

Then came this morning’s shocker: the economy created just 39,000 jobs in November, compared to 172,000 in October, and the unemployment rate jumped from 9.6 per cent to 9.8 per cent. Health care and temporary help services were the only sectors reporting significant new hiring. Most other sectors reported flat payrolls or reductions. The sectors cutting jobs included retailing and finance, which had appeared to be doing relatively well. What is going on? In ascending order of frightfulness, here are four possibilities.

These are “rogue” figures. The payroll data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics jumps around a lot from month to month, and it is sometimes revised sharply in subsequent releases. Perhaps there was some sampling error, or perhaps the government statisticians got their tweaking wrong. The published job figures are not the raw ones that the government collects. They are adjusted for seasonal variation, a process that is always somewhat arbitrary. (For example, the unemployment rate before seasonal adjustment is actually 9.4 per cent, not 9.8 per cent.) The economy is genuinely picking up, but many businesses don’t quite believe it yet, so they are balking at taking on any permanent new workers. Evidence to support this theory includes the fact that the hiring of temps did pick up last month, but the retail sector actually cut 28,000 jobs. If this is what is happening, then permanent hiring should pick up again in the next couple of months as the level of overall demand in the economy continues to rise. The recovery is real, but it’s a jobless recovery. Thanks to advances in information technology, the application of more aggressive management techniques, competition from China, an expansion in the informal economy, or (enter here your own pet theory) the U.S. economy simply doesn’t need as many permanent workers as it used to need. In which case, unemployment is likely to remain high for the foreseeable future. Armageddon. The recent pickup in spending is a blip, and businesses are right to be worried. Households are still burdened with too much debt, the banks face another wave of housing foreclosures, Washington is in gridlock, and Europe looks like falling apart. Come the New Year, consumers will pull back, the stock market will lurch downward, and the Fed will be out of ammo.

Perhaps just to defy my reputation as a prophet of doom, I am leaning toward the second scenario. Come January or February, I think, the employment situation will finally start to brighten. But if hiring doesn’t pick up over the next couple of months, we will all have to look more seriously at the third possibility, and even the fourth.

What are the words to the old Clash song? Ah, now I remember: “It’s not Christmas time anymore. It’s Armagideon.” Watch below to cheer yourself up.