‘Ghost job’ postings add another layer of uncertainty to stalled jobs picture

Judging by the available data, you might think there is literally a job for anyone who wants it. But a deeper look under the hood tells a different story.

The level of job opportunities the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported for years indicates that there are at least as many job openings as there are unemployed workers.

However, when comparing open positions with actual hiring, it appears that not all of these jobs are filled.

Not even close: Since the beginning of 2024, job openings have outpaced hiring by more than 2.2 million per month, according to BLS data. This points to an ongoing problem with “ghost jobs” that never seem to be filled.

“The US labor market looks deceptively strong on paper. It points to millions of open opportunities, but most are illusions,” said Jasmine Escalera, career expert at employment support platform MyPerfectResume. a report this week on the “ghost job economy.” “The ghost job economy raises hope, wastes job seekers’ time and clouds data [that] “Policymakers are counting on driving the economy.”

Job openings have been generally declining since peaking at more than 12 million in March 2022, when opportunities outnumbered available workers by a factor of 2 to 1. In August, the last month for which data is available due to the government shutdown, job openings totaled more than 7.2 million, while the number of hires was just 5.1 million. The ratio of vacancies to workers was almost equal.

Of course, the picture is not as simple as comparing two numbers.

While the number of postings represents the total job stock, hiring is the flow of people hired in a given month. So a job may be advertised for several months without being filled, but that doesn’t mean the companies advertising these positions aren’t necessarily considering hiring someone.

potential inventory

Moreover, some companies post job postings just to keep an inventory of potential employees for future positions.

Finally, the open hiring rate has fallen over the past few years from 1.8 to 1 at the peak of the job opening cycle to its current level of 1.4 to 1, indicating that “ghost jobs” are on the decline.

Another issue affecting the difference is the changing labor pool as the United States tightens immigration standards.

Small business owners are reporting they are having the hardest time filling open positions since the Covid outbreak, with one study saying 88% of job applicants do not have the necessary skills. National Federation of Independent Business Report on Tuesday.

However, in recent months, the issue has begun to attract more serious attention as the labor market has begun to slow down and net hiring has tended to slow down. Official government data is also unavailable due to the shutdown in Washington DC

Job seekers were frustrated by not being able to find new positions. During the so-called “Great Resignation” period, activity has slowed, with the “job turnover rate” falling by more than 30% since the peak of job openings in March 2022.

Sign petition on Change.org trying to squeeze Nearly 50,000 signatures were collected about companies advertising ghost jobs.

There are real implications at the policy level: Federal Reserve officials watch BLS vacancy numbers closely for clues about how tight the labor market is, so having unreliable data clouds their vision.

“For job seekers, this means wasted time. For policymakers, this means skewed data. For employers, it causes serious reliability problems,” Escalera said. “Until postings more accurately reflect actual hiring, workers will continue to chase jobs that don’t exist and confidence in the labor market will erode.”