Even as the German economy suffers through its worst slump since World War II, the government unveiled a seemingly happy surprise on Thursday: Not many people lost their jobs last month.

So has Germany escaped the ravages of the downturn? Probably not, economists say. The apparent resilience of the labor market is more indicative of a peculiarly German approach to combating the punishing recession than of underlying trends in the economy. Germany has found creative ways to keep people off the jobless rolls, whether they have work to do or not.