'Ghost job' postings are adding another layer of uncertainty to the stalling jobs picture

Judging by current data, you'd think there's literally a job out there for anyone who wants one. Looking deeper under the hood, though, tells a different story.

The level of job openings as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for years has shown there are at least as many available positions as there are unemployed workers.

But comparing the openings with actual hirings shows that not all those jobs are being filled.

Not even close, in fact: Since the beginning of 2024, job openings have outnumbered job hirings by more than 2.2 million a month, according to BLS data. That points to an ongoing problem with "ghost jobs" that never seem to get filled.

"The U.S. labor market looks deceptively strong on paper. Millions of openings suggest opportunity, but many are illusions," said Jasmine Escalera, career expert at MyPerfectResume, an employment assistance platform that released a report this week on "the ghost job economy." "The ghost job economy inflates hope, wastes job seekers' time and clouds the data [that] policymakers rely on to steer the economy."

Job openings have generally been on the decline since peaking above 12 million in March 2022, when opportunities outnumbered available workers by better than 2 to 1. In August, the latest month for which data is available because of the shutdown, openings totaled more than 7.2 million while hires were just 5.1 million. The ratio of vacancies to workers was about even.

To be sure, the picture isn't as simple as comparing the two numbers.

The postings number represents the total stock of jobs, while hirings are the flow of people hired during a particular month. So a job can get posted across multiple months without being filled, but that doesn't necessarily mean the companies advertising those positions don't intend to hire someone.

Potential inventory

Moreover, some companies will post jobs just to keep an inventory of potential workers for positions that may open in the future.

Finally, the openings-to-hire ratio has fallen over the past few years, from 1.8 to 1 at the peak of the job opening cycle to the current level around 1.4 to 1, indicating fewer "ghost jobs" out there.

One issue affecting the gap: the changing labor pool as the U.S. has tightened its immigration standards.

Small business owners report the toughest time filling open positions since the Covid pandemic while noting that 88% of applicants for jobs lack the required skills, according to a National Federation of Independent Business report Tuesday.

However, the issue has drawn more serious attention in recent months as the labor market has begun moderating and net hiring has slowed to a crawl. At the same time, official government data is unavailable due to the shutdown in Washington, D.C.

Job seekers have become frustrated at not being able to find new positions. Mobility has decelerated, with the "quits rate" falling more than 30% from that March 2022 peak of job openings, during what was called the "Great Resignation."

A petition on Change.org seeking to clamp down on companies advertising ghost jobs has garnered nearly 50,000 signatures.

There are real impacts on a policy level: Federal Reserve officials watch BLS job openings numbers closely for clues about how tight the labor market is, so having unreliable data clouds their vision.

"For job seekers, that means wasted time. For policymakers, it means distorted data. For employers, it raises serious credibility issues," Escalera said. "Until postings more accurately reflect actual hiring, workers will continue to chase jobs that don't exist, and trust in the labor market will erode."