By JAN HOFFMAN

To a passer-by, the chic clothing store on Mott Street in Manhattan looked like a tumult of activity. On a recent weekday afternoon, Carolyn Bailey, a supervisor, was fussing with the window displays of women’s clothing, shifting piles of perfectly folded sweaters, spacing hangers a finger-width apart and debating avidly on the phone with a higher-up about coordinating outfits.

Though she appeared occupied, intently so, she was creating an illusion of busyness. The shop was empty.

“You don’t want anyone from corporate to walk in and see you doing nothing,”Ms.Bailey said.“You’ve got to keep busy for them and the clients.”

In a sunny economy, workers joke about frittering away the hours during traditional slow times. But now, when business is very, very slow and the possibility of layoffs all too real, looking busy is no joke. In retail and real estate, restaurants and law offices, many workers are working hard to look necessary - even when they don’t have all that much to do.

While staff reductions have left many employees feeling breathless with too much work, at companies where downtime is glaringly obvious, employees are becoming creative about disguising idleness.

A portfolio manager, 30, who works for a private equity firm in New Jersey, scatters papers on his desk. When he goes out for long lunches, he colludes with friends in other offices to call him - and deliberately leaves behind his cellphone, with the ringer’s volume set to high. (Like many workers interviewed for this article he requested that neither his name nor his company be mentioned, worried that his position would be at risk.)

A lawyer at the New York office of an international firm wanted to give the impression he was working late at night - but he was stymied by office lighting that would dim when he left the room. So he brought in an oscillating fan, which tricked the motion detectors into keeping the lights on long after he’d departed.

Cyberloafing - the nonwork-related use of computers by employees - often gives temporary cover to those who want to appear busy, if they can master the furrowed brow, the studious squint at the monitor (while bidding on eBay). Work e-mail messages can be programmed to be sent in the middle of the night, so that workers can seem 24-7 dedicated.

In these unbusy times, busywork’s bad reputation may be due for revision. Busywork can give you a reassuring, small-bore task. It can trigger ideas for genuine productivity. It can stave off boredom for some, even as it drives others absolutely crazy.

Jonathan Spira, the chief analyst at Basex, a business research firm, said if employers sense that workers have too much downtime or busywork, they can start cross-training programs. But he added, taking initiative before the boss does is preferable. Rather than try to kill time, better to freshen a resume or think of novel ways to be useful on the job.

Of course employers do tend to notice when busywork doesn’t contribute to the bottom line.

At law firms, which have been jolted almost daily by layoffs, busywork rarely translates into tasks for which one can bill a client by the hour. One corporate lawyer in the Manhattan office of a 950-lawyer national firm said that when the economy stalled last summer, he spent his days following the Washington news and calling clients in an advisory, nonbillable capacity.

“It was a way to show the client that even though things were slow, I’m still looking out for your best interests so that when things come back, you can turn to us as experts,”said the lawyer, who specialized in structured finance.

“I was busy not making money,”he said.“But because I was out there trying to do things for the firm that were valuable in a different way, I thought that might be enough.”

A few weeks ago he was laid off.