Applying for a job that might not exist might be subtly discouraging. After polishing your CV and customizing your cover letter, you click submit and wait, sometimes for weeks, perhaps indefinitely. Now that quiet has a name. They’ve crept into the hiring sector like a draft beneath a door that no one cared to seal, and people refer to them as “ghost jobs.”
The phenomenon is not wholly novel. As early as 2003, reports of questionable postings appeared in HR forums and trade sections. The suspicion and the scale have shifted. If you’ve recently glanced through LinkedIn, you’ve certainly noticed that the same job posting at the same company keeps showing up month after month, sometimes with a new “posted 2 days ago” stamp. The applications piling up underneath make it difficult not to question who, if anyone, is truly reading them.
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Phenomenon | Ghost job postings — listings for roles that don’t exist or aren’t being actively filled |
| First Major Media Mentions | As early as 2003, with sharp resurgence post-2022 |
| Primary U.S. Data Source | Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Peak Recorded Openings | 2022, since declined to levels last seen in 2018–2019 |
| Common Reasons Cited | Talent pipelining, signaling growth, internal hiring optics, fraud |
| Relevant Federal Law | Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act |
| Reported Job Scams (2020–2024) | Nearly tripled per FTC Consumer Sentinel Network |
| Notable Federal Action | February 2025 — FTC Joint Labor Task Force announced under Chairman Andrew Ferguson |
| Survey Origin of Modern Coverage | A September 2022 business lending firm survey of managers |
| Enforcement Difficulty | Intent to hire is subjective and hard to prove deceptive |
Employers have their own motives. In the same way that collectors store ancient coins for a rainy day rather than for immediate use, some people gather resumes. Others post job positions to show momentum, either to current employees who could be tempted to coast or to investors who wish to see a growing company. While secretly preparing to elevate someone internally, a handful post positions to meet diversity-of-applicant requirements. Additionally, some post job openings just in case a unicorn applies. Technically, none of it is against the law. Most of it isn’t even out of the ordinary.
Then there are the posts that were never intended to be ghosts. A position filled in March may still appear on a third-party website in August because job boards automatically scrape and republish advertisements. In order to show their breadth, staffing firms may create fictitious vacancies.
In order to collect data, scammers pose as legitimate employers. The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network states that between 2020 and 2024, the number of job and employment-agency scam reports almost tripled. It’s not a rounding error. There is a pattern there.
None of this is fully reflected in the official figures. Only positions where a specific post exists, work is available, hiring might start within thirty days, and the company is actively recruiting are counted in JOLTS, the federal survey that tracks opportunities. The majority of ghost jobs should be eliminated by truthful responses. However, the term “actively recruiting” is ambiguous, and since the poll is private, companies cannot profit from manipulating the numbers there, even if they post inflated numbers elsewhere. After reaching all-time highs in 2022, openings have since declined to almost pre-pandemic levels. Fake jobs hurt more since real jobs are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
Industry surveys continue to fuel the flames, but it is difficult to determine how much weight to give their estimations because many of them come from companies that market verification products. Skeptics are right. Boosters also possess one.
The human cost is more difficult to dispute. Most people don’t realize how quickly confidence erodes. My acquaintance, a software programmer with ten years of experience, informed me that he no longer reads rejection emails since the silences are less painful. Watching this unfold gives me the impression that the labor market has subtly reorganized itself around an unwritten agreement: post freely, respond infrequently. It’s actually unclear what regulators can do about it. The intent is elusive. Damage is dispersed. Furthermore, those who check their email at 11 p.m. aren’t holding out for a task force. They are awaiting a response.
