Meet John Doe. He's in his early
20s and eager to jump into the Workforce. He sees a job listing
that looks perfect to him.So he Brushes up his resume. He writes
an awesome cover letter, Applies, and then waits and
waits. So after a month or so, He actually sees the same job
posting relisted, which makes Him super frustrated. John isn't alone. Many people
are frustrated by applying to These kinds of jobs that seem to
have no intention of hiring Anyone. If you are in the position of
trying to find a new job, of Course, you don't want to waste
your time applying for these Ghost jobs. But it turns out, all those open
job postings that you see online Might not even be real. Ghost jobs are phenomenon that
have existed for a long time, But they've come to light much
more in recent years, and They've become much more of a
significant issue in the job Market. Four in 10 companies posted fake
job listings in 2024, and three In 10 are currently advertising
for a role that isn't real, According to a May survey from
Resume Builder, The rise of ghost job posting
definitely points to a cooling In the economy. We are seeing
that employers are more hesitant To make that higher, and it just
points to the fact that demand For telling is slowing down. Here's why ghost jobs are on the
rise. Ghost jobs are actually not
scams. They're from real Companies, but they are openings
that don't actually exist. That Company is not actually hiring
for that role at this moment in Time. They might be interested
in hiring for that role in the Future, or maybe they were
hiring for it, but due to budget Cuts, those roles were closed or
put on hold. A ghost job is essentially a job
that remains open online and Never gets filled. The
occurrence of ghost jobs has
Increased quite dramatically
over the past five years. We're Seeing a decline in the rate of
hires to job postings, and that Rate has basically halved over
the past five years. So whereas In 2019 we saw eight hires per
10 job postings, we are now Seeing four hires per 10 job
postings, which, of course, is Quite a dramatic drop. This is a pretty worrying
development, because it just Softens the signal of what a job
posting really means and whether There is truly a hiring
intention behind that from the Employer point of view. I think we're seeing a lot of
ghost jobs lately for the same Reason that I think a lot of
people keep their Tinder Profiles up, even if they're not
actively looking for a Relationship. It's because we
like to keep our options open For you know whether it's a good
or a bad thing, companies are no Different. Companies know that
talent is not always available When they are ready to hire, so
they want to be able to attract Applications from potentially
great candidates, even if They're not right now able to
give that person a job Because of market visibility. if
they are regularly listing their Job openings, that will enhance
a company's image, potentially Showing them as a growing and
thriving organization, and maybe That's a signal to investors or
clients or competitors that Their company is expanding the
brand perception. Market research. Some companies,
they have no idea what is the Salary, what are the skill sets
and demands, so they probably Are posting to get that data.
What are you expecting as a Salary if you want to be in that
role in this industry. So that's Why they're collecting those
data, so that they can build a Total compensation package and
build the key performance Indicator and net promoter
scores for the companies if they Really don't know how the
recruiting works. So maybe it's For market insights to go into
the future, but that does not Benefit to job seekers at all.
That's such a bad employer
Branding. The US job market significantly
slowed in july 2024. however, if You look at the overall labor
market, it's still healthy. It's no question. This report
came in cooler than expected, But over the past three months,
payrolls are up 170,000 that's Certainly a good enough clip to
keep the labor market healthy. Accordingto June's job openings
and labor turnover survey, Commonly known as JOLTS, the
number of unemployed persons per Job opening stands at point
eight, indicating a tight labor Market. Job openings in labor turnover
known as JOLTS. Jolts coming in Near expectations, 8,184,000
actually, that's better than Expectations. Despite a tight labor market, on
paper, many workers are still Struggling to find jobs,
indicating a disconnect between The data and the real life
experiences of job seekers. The rise of ghost jobs is
muddying the jobs report. It's Making it harder for the Fed to
make decisions and understand What the labor market looks
like. Anecdotally, people will Tell you that it's very tough
out there. We've talked about This notion of unhireables.
People who are out of work, got Laid off and just can't find a
job. They can't buy an Interview. There are people
coming out of college, and They're finding that they are
putting out 500 – 800 – 1000 Applications, and they can't get
an interview, let alone a job. And yet, when you look at the
base numbers on the job boards, It would seem like we're in an
incredibly robust hiring market, And those ghost jobs are
creating a fake perception, and No one knows how fake that
perception is. And the Fed and Economists are trying to
understand what's real and what Isn't, and they haven't yet
figured out the silver bullet to Understand. Overthe past decade, JOLTS shows
a marked increase in job Openings for any given level of
unemployment, and this is making
People think, Oh, well, maybe
these openings aren't real Openings. I would push back
against that a little bit, Because JOLTS specifically asks
employers to report only jobs That they could fill within the
next 30 days. Most ghost jobs, That is, jobs that employers
don't intend to fill that soon Or ever, either intentionally or
by mistake, most of those Shouldn't appear in jolts at
all. TheBureau of Labor Statistics
stated that the Jolts program Doesn't use job listings for
estimating job openings. While Familiar with the term ghost
jobs, the program believes it Does not have any data related
to the phenomenon. It's really hard as a job seeker
to spot a ghost job. There are Some signs. If you look at a job
and you see that it's been open For over a month. Sometimes it
might say it's been open for Many months. Some of the job
boards will give an indication Of how many people have applied
for a job. And so if you see That a job has been open for 90
days and 10,000 people have Applied, putting your
application in your 10,001 year A number, it's probably a ghost
job. So my firm uncovered that
there's 1.7 million job openings On LinkedIn in 2023 as of the
date of the article, that were Older than a month, and these
we've determined to be potential Ghost jobs. They're not
necessarily ghost jobs. And that Is the difficulty with ghost
jobs is that they're hard to Fully prove. So there are ghost
jobs out there for sure, they're Rising and they're a problem,
but it's not always easy to Completely pin them down, and
companies don't want to admit That they're posting ghost jobs
because it looks bad for them. It's anti employee, it's anti
job seeker, and it's very pro Company. So they want to be
careful about that, so they're Not going to openly admit that
they're posting ghost jobs. Another red flag for a job
posting that's potentially a Ghost job is when it's a vague
job title. So for example, if They say we're looking for a
Video Superstar, or we're
Looking for a Project Manager
Superstar, or they use some sort Of identification that doesn't
really say much, it could be an Indication that they are just
keeping a job opening available So they can attract talent and
get a nice little pool of Potential talent that they can
pull from when and if they do Need to hire. Job boards are the most popular
places for job seekers to find Opportunities. Indeed,
ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn are Among the most popular job
boards in the US. However, There's growing concern that
some of these platforms aren't Doing enough to address the
issue of fake job postings. Job posting platforms can
address ghost jobs. The first Line of addressing them is
taking full responsibility for Them, even if they're not the
ones posting it. That's totally Understandable, but it's still
their site. It's their platform, And I believe they should take
100% responsibility. They should Be verifying, you know, they
could implement an enhanced job Post verification method. So
potentially, they're reaching Out to multiple people in the
hiring process, an HR person, a Hiring manager, or verifying
that person via social media. I would love to see these job
posting sites like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and Indeed, hold
companies a little bit more Accountable for being
transparent about how long the Listings have been up and how
recently the position was hired For. If they're going to
continue to keep the listing up, They should have options
somewhere to say, We recently Hired this position. You can
keep it up at that point, you Can make it clear that, hey, if
you if you think you're a good Fit, go ahead and drop your
application. Maybe, if this Doesn't work out, we'll reach
back out to you. CNBC reached out to a few major
job posting platforms for Comment. LinkedIn stated that
their job posting policy Requires posts to be genuine and
accurate, and they're removed After six months. Indeed, noted
that some postings stay active
During ongoing searches or
continuous hiring. And ZipRecruiter stated that ghost
jobs are prohibited under their Policies. At the end of the day, when it
comes to ghost jobs, I mean, Companies got to do what they
got to do, and I think they're Willing to take that
reputational risk if it means They can attract the best talent
and do what's best for them at The end of the day. What ghost jobs speak about the
labor market is that it's not Currently friendly to job
seekers, and companies are Taking advantage of the labor
market. They're finding this Opening that's this legal gray
area, and they're taking Advantage of it, and they don't
need to be nice to job seekers, Because they think that they owe
them nothing, and they think That they'll be able to push the
cost of their own employees down With this, because there's a lot
of sentiment online about it Being impossible to find a job
right now. So why am I gonna Leave my job and try to find
another job? So I think what This might lead to, though, is
job seekers doing the same thing To companies like keeping the
doors open for themselves and Looking for jobs the entire time
they're working and having many Recruitment contacts, because
that's what companies are doing. They're always looking for the
next step and they're worried About themselves. Then that's
going to create that same Sentiment with employees. Right now, even JOLTS is giving
us some confusing signals. The Discussion about ghost jobs is
one of the ways that the Financial community is trying to
understand these trends. Unfortunately, we probably won't
know whether these really are Permanent or temporary changes
in the prevalence of ghost jobs Until after this cycle is over,
and the more academic economists Sit there and really parse the
data out. But right now, what we Have is a lot of hypotheses
coming out of the people who are Watching the data very closely.
Ghost jobs is one interesting
Potential explanation for some
of the more confusing patterns That we're seeing in the labor market.
