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A fake job, ghost job, or phantom job is a job posting for a non-existent or already filled position.

The employer may post fake job opening listings for many reasons:

  • Inflating statistics about their industries
  • Protecting the company from discrimination lawsuits
  • Fulfilling requirements by human-resources departments
  • Identifying potentially promising recruits for future hiring
  • Pacifying existing employees with the premise that the company is looking for extra help
  • Retaining desirable employees[1][2][3]
  • Information-gathering on competitor wages[4][5][6][7][8]

There is a rising trend[9] in employers promising remote work as “bait,”[10] and it underscores the relative power of the employers in the job market.[2]

According to the career coaching service SamNova, a fake job listing can often be spotted as one that is either continuously open or repeatedly posted.[11] These listings may have catchy titles, vague descriptions, a lack of detail, or contain reposts of previous listings.

A survey conducted by Clarify Capital has concluded that many companies and government entities have tricked job seekers with fake ads without the intent of hiring.[4] A 2025 study by recruiting platform Greenhouse Software showed at least one in five job postings in the US is fake or never filled.[12][13]

Legality

Ghost Jobs are generally legal worldwide, though they may violate Information privacy laws or Consumer protection law in specific contexts in some countries.[14][15]

In January 2026 a law in the province of Ontario in Canada intended to curb the practice went into effect under the law companies with at least 25 employees must disclose whether a vacancy is actively being filled in a job listing, inform job applicants about the status of their job candidacy within 45 days of a job interview and whether a decision to hire an employee has or has not been made.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ Bienasz, Gabrielle (September 20, 2022). “What Are ‘Ghost Jobs’ and Why Are They Everywhere Now?”. Entrepreneur. Archived from the original on July 26, 2023. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  2. ^ a b Weber, Lauren; Kwoh, Leslie (January 8, 2013). “Beware the Phantom Job Listing”. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 3, 2023.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  3. ^ Thapa, Anuz (August 22, 2024). “Ghost jobs: What the rise in fake job listings says about the current job market”. CNBC.
  4. ^ a b Mercurio, Joe (September 1, 2022). “Survey: Job Seekers Beware of Ghost Jobs”. Retrieved August 11, 2023.
  5. ^ Knight, Rebecca; Kaplan, Juliana. “That’s not a real job opening: Some companies are posting ‘ghost jobs’ but don’t actually plan to hire you — or anyone”. Business Insider. Archived from the original on 2023-07-05. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  6. ^ Berwick, Isabel; Smith, Sophia (October 12, 2022). “Beware of ‘ghost job’ listings”. Financial Times. Archived from the original on November 25, 2022. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  7. ^ “Breakingviews – Fake jobs hide cooler reality for US workforce”. Reuters. April 4, 2023. Archived from the original on 2023-06-04. Retrieved 2023-08-10 – via www.reuters.com.
  8. ^ Chen, Te-Ping (March 20, 2023). “Job Listings Abound, but Many Are Fake”. Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on August 7, 2023. Retrieved August 10, 2023 – via www.wsj.com.
  9. ^ Rogers, Taylor Nicole (June 4, 2022). “Are ‘fake’ job ads inflating America’s employment data?”. Financial Times. Archived from the original on November 29, 2022. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  10. ^ Moore, Cortney (April 25, 2023). “Fake remote, hybrid jobs shared online to trick candidates”. Fox Business. Archived from the original on May 23, 2023. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  11. ^ Kim, Soo (June 21, 2023). “Seven red flags to look out for on a job ad, according to business experts”. Newsweek. Archived from the original on August 7, 2023. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  12. ^ Ropek, Lucas (2025-01-14). “1 in 5 Online Job Postings Are Either Fake or Never Filled, Study Finds”. Gizmodo. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  13. ^ Cook, Lynn (2025-01-13). “Fake Job Postings Are Becoming a Real Problem”. WSJ. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  14. ^ ““Ghost” Job Postings”. www.congress.gov. Retrieved 2026-04-09.
  15. ^ Bushey, Kayla; Kanthasamy, Saz (2024-12-05). “Ghost jobs: The phantom hiring trend with data privacy implications | IAPP”. IAPP.org. Retrieved 2026-04-09.
  16. ^ Liu, Jennifer (2025-08-07). “Lawmakers want to end HR ghosting during the interview process—here’s how”. CNBC. Retrieved 2026-04-09.