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THE GHOST JOB MARKET
THE GHOST JOB MARKET
When a Job Posting Exists, but the Job Does Not
By Sura Anjana Srimayi
INTRODUCTION
It is March 2026, and the modern job market increasingly resembles a hall of mirrors.
You find a position that appears perfectly suited to your experience. The title is attractive, the job description is detailed, the company appears reputable, and the platform tells you that you are an excellent match. You spend hours tailoring your résumé, writing a cover letter, completing assessments and preparing for interviews.
Then nothing happens.
Weeks pass. Then months.
Eventually, you notice something strange: the same position is still being advertised. Perhaps it has been reposted several times. The wording has barely changed. The company continues to appear to be hiring, yet there is little evidence that anyone is actually being appointed.
This phenomenon is commonly described as a "ghost job" or "phantom job"—a job advertisement that remains publicly available despite there being no immediate, genuine intention to fill the position.
Not every stale or repeatedly advertised vacancy is necessarily a ghost job. Recruitment can legitimately take months, positions can be placed on hold, internal approvals can be delayed, budgets can change, and companies can maintain talent pipelines for anticipated vacancies.
The problem arises when an employer knowingly maintains an advertisement for a position that it does not genuinely intend to fill, while presenting the advertisement to applicants as though it were an active opportunity.
That distinction matters.
The ghost-job phenomenon is not merely a frustrating recruitment practice. It raises questions about transparency, data collection, employer conduct, labour-market information, corporate communications and, in certain circumstances, the accuracy of representations made to regulators, investors, employees or government authorities.
The most controversial question is whether some organisations may use apparently active recruitment as evidence of growth or hiring efforts even when actual hiring is not taking place.
That is where a seemingly ordinary job advertisement can move from a recruitment issue into a broader legal and regulatory question.
I. WHAT EXACTLY IS A "GHOST JOB"?
A ghost job is generally understood as a job advertisement that remains visible to candidates even though the employer has no genuine and reasonably foreseeable intention of filling that particular position.
There are several forms this can take.
1. The Evergreen Advertisement
Some employers deliberately maintain advertisements continuously for positions they expect to need eventually.
For example, a technology company may permanently advertise:
Senior Software Engineer
Data Scientist
Product Manager
The company may not have an immediate opening but wants to maintain a database of potential candidates.
This is more accurately described as pipeline recruitment rather than necessarily a ghost job—provided the employer is transparent about the nature of the listing.
2. The Frozen Vacancy
A genuine vacancy may exist initially, but recruitment may subsequently be frozen because of:
- budget constraints;
- restructuring;
- management changes;
- acquisition or merger discussions;
- changes in business strategy;
- hiring approvals being withdrawn; or
- economic uncertainty.
The advertisement may remain online because nobody remembers to remove it.
This may create the appearance of a ghost job even without deliberate deception.
3. The Resume-Harvesting Advertisement
A more problematic practice occurs when a company has no immediate vacancy but deliberately advertises a position primarily to collect résumés, contact information, professional histories and other candidate data.
The organisation effectively creates a database of potential employees without necessarily informing applicants that there is no current opening.
4. The "Optics" Advertisement
An even more controversial situation arises when recruitment advertisements are allegedly used to create the impression that an organisation is expanding.
A company that is publicly announcing growth may simultaneously maintain dozens or hundreds of job advertisements.
The advertisements can therefore become part of the company's broader external image:
"We are hiring."
"We are expanding."
"We are building our workforce."
But the number of advertisements may have little relationship with the number of people actually being hired.
5. The Perpetually Reposted Job
Perhaps the easiest warning sign for candidates is the position that appears repeatedly for months.
The title remains substantially identical.
The job description remains substantially identical.
The employer keeps refreshing the posting.
Yet there is no discernible recruitment progression.
A repeatedly refreshed advertisement does not, by itself, establish that a job is fake. But it can be a useful signal for candidates to investigate further before investing significant time.
II. WHY WOULD A COMPANY MAINTAIN A GHOST JOB?
The motivations can range from completely legitimate business practices to potentially misleading conduct.
1. Talent Pooling
The most straightforward explanation is talent pooling.
Companies sometimes know that they will require particular skills in the future but cannot predict exactly when the vacancies will arise.
Rather than beginning recruitment from zero every time, they maintain a pipeline of candidates.
For example:
A company expects to open ten engineering positions over the next twelve months. Instead of waiting for each vacancy to arise, it continuously collects applications.
From the company's perspective, this reduces recruitment time.
From the candidate's perspective, however, the experience can be misleading if the advertisement appears to represent an immediate vacancy.
The distinction therefore lies partly in disclosure and expectation.
2. Recruitment for Future Expansion
Businesses frequently recruit ahead of anticipated expansion.
A new office may be planned.
A contract may be under negotiation.
A new product may be under development.
A business may be preparing to enter a new geographical market.
In such circumstances, advertising positions before the final vacancy technically exists can be commercially rational.
Again, this is not automatically a ghost job.
The concern arises when a company continues advertising indefinitely without a realistic hiring plan.
3. Building a Strategic Talent Database
Recruitment advertisements have become a powerful data-collection mechanism.
An application can reveal:
- educational qualifications;
- employment history;
- technical skills;
- salary expectations;
- geographical preferences;
- professional certifications;
- career aspirations; and
- contact information.
For employers, this information can be extremely valuable.
A company may therefore regard an open-ended job advertisement as a form of talent-market intelligence.
The candidate, however, may believe that the primary purpose of the application is to compete for a current vacancy.
That difference in expectations creates an important transparency issue.
III. THE "GROWTH SIGNAL" PROBLEM
One of the more controversial dimensions of ghost jobs concerns corporate signalling.
Recruitment activity can communicate information to the outside world.
A company advertising hundreds of vacancies may appear to be:
- expanding;
- increasing its workforce;
- entering new markets;
- investing in technology;
- increasing operational capacity; or
- preparing for substantial growth.
Investors, competitors, suppliers and prospective employees may interpret hiring activity as a signal of corporate confidence.
But a job advertisement is not the same thing as an actual employee.
A company can have:
500 advertised vacancies
while hiring only:
50 employees.
The two numbers describe completely different things.
This creates a potential information asymmetry.
If advertisements are treated as evidence of expansion without corresponding actual hiring, external observers may form conclusions that are not supported by the company's eventual workforce data.
That does not automatically mean that the company has committed fraud or violated securities laws. Intent, representations, materiality and the applicable legal framework would all matter.
Nevertheless, it illustrates why the distinction between "jobs advertised" and "jobs created" is important.
IV. THE EMPLOYEE-LEVERAGE THEORY
Another theory associated with ghost jobs concerns existing employees.
Suppose an organisation continuously advertises positions that overlap substantially with the roles of its existing workforce.
Employees may interpret this as a signal that the company has a ready supply of replacement candidates.
The psychological message can be:
"If you leave, someone else can replace you."
This can potentially influence employees' willingness to negotiate compensation, challenge working conditions or seek internal changes.
However, proving that an advertisement was intentionally maintained for this purpose would require evidence of the employer's actual intent.
The mere existence of an external job posting cannot establish that motive.
V. THE TAX INCENTIVE QUESTION
This is where the ghost-job debate becomes significantly more complicated.
It is sometimes suggested that employers may maintain recruitment advertisements to demonstrate "hiring effort" for the purpose of obtaining or retaining tax benefits, subsidies, grants or other government incentives.
This theory should be approached carefully.
A job advertisement is generally not equivalent to actual job creation.
If a government programme requires an employer to create a specified number of jobs, simply advertising those jobs would ordinarily not establish that the jobs were actually created.
The distinction can be expressed simply:
Hiring intention ? recruitment advertisement ? actual employment.
Nevertheless, some incentive programmes may impose conditions concerning recruitment efforts, projected employment, investment commitments or workforce development.
The precise legal consequences therefore depend on the terms of the particular scheme.
VI. SECTION 80JJAA AND INDIA
Section 80JJAA of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1961 provides a deduction in relation to certain additional employee costs, subject to statutory conditions.
The provision is concerned with additional employee cost, not simply the existence of job advertisements.
This distinction is critical.
An employer cannot ordinarily transform a non-existent employee into a qualifying employee merely by publishing a vacancy.
The relevant statutory requirements include conditions relating to additional employees, employment duration and other prescribed requirements.
Consequently, the idea that maintaining a "ghost advertisement" by itself creates a Section 80JJAA tax benefit would be an oversimplification.
A more accurate concern would be different:
If an employer represents to a government authority, auditor or other relevant party that it has undertaken qualifying employment activity when the underlying employment did not actually occur, the accuracy of those representations could become relevant.
That is a question of evidence and compliance—not simply the existence of a job advertisement.
VII. GOVERNMENT GRANTS AND EMPLOYMENT COMMITMENTS
The issue becomes more interesting when companies receive government incentives linked to employment generation.
State governments and other authorities may establish incentive programmes involving commitments relating to:
- investment;
- employment;
- payroll;
- local hiring;
- manufacturing capacity;
- training;
- infrastructure;
- research and development; or
- regional development.
Suppose a company commits to creating 1,000 jobs.
It subsequently creates only 400.
Keeping 600 vacancies online would not ordinarily convert those 600 uncreated jobs into actual employment.
If the programme specifically requires the company to demonstrate recruitment efforts, however, evidence of recruitment activity might form part of the compliance record.
The critical question would therefore be:
What exactly does the incentive agreement require?
If the contractual requirement is "create 1,000 jobs," advertisements are unlikely to satisfy that requirement.
If the requirement is "undertake specified recruitment efforts," the analysis may be different.
This distinction should be examined scheme by scheme rather than treated as a universal rule.
VIII. WHEN DOES A JOB ADVERTISEMENT BECOME MISLEADING?
This is arguably the central legal question.
A job advertisement generally communicates several implicit propositions:
The employer has a role.
The role is available.
The employer is accepting applications.
Applicants may have a realistic opportunity of being considered.
If none of these propositions is genuinely true, the advertisement may become misleading depending on the applicable law.
But not every misleading or frustrating recruitment experience constitutes fraud.
Legal liability generally depends on factors such as:
- the representation made;
- whether it was false or misleading;
- whether the employer knew or should have known this;
- the applicable statute or regulation;
- whether candidates relied upon the representation;
- whether they suffered legally recognised loss; and
- whether the relevant jurisdiction provides a remedy.
This is why the legal analysis should not begin with:
"The company posted a fake job, therefore it committed fraud."
It should begin with:
"What exactly did the company represent, what did it know, and which legal rule governs that representation?"
IX. FALSE ADVERTISING AND UNFAIR COMPETITION
In some jurisdictions, employment-related representations may intersect with consumer-protection, unfair-competition or advertising laws.
Whether a particular job advertisement falls within such legislation depends heavily on the jurisdiction and the wording of the statute.
For example, a law may prohibit a business from making materially false or misleading statements in commercial activity.
But applying that rule to employment advertising requires careful legal analysis.
The following facts could potentially become relevant:
- The employer knew there was no vacancy.
- The advertisement represented that the position was immediately available.
- Applications were actively solicited.
- Candidates were induced to provide significant personal information or perform substantial unpaid work.
- The employer repeatedly represented that recruitment was ongoing.
- The conduct caused identifiable harm.
Even then, the precise legal remedy would depend on the applicable law.
X. THE PROBLEM WITH "TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENTS"
The ghost-job problem becomes particularly serious when candidates are required to perform substantial work as part of the recruitment process.
Imagine a candidate spends:
- five hours researching the company;
- three hours preparing a presentation;
- two hours completing a technical assignment; and
- several additional hours attending interviews.
The candidate eventually discovers that the position was never actually going to be filled.
The candidate has not merely lost an application opportunity.
They have potentially provided valuable labour without compensation.
This creates an important distinction.
A short assessment designed genuinely to evaluate skills is a normal part of recruitment.
A detailed business strategy, software module, market report, legal analysis or consulting-style project that is subsequently used by the company for commercial purposes raises a different set of concerns.
The legal question would then move beyond whether the job was "ghosted" and into issues such as:
- intellectual property;
- confidentiality;
- unjust enrichment;
- contract;
- employment law;
- commercial use of candidate work; and
- applicable wage or compensation rules.
XI. THE DATA-PRIVACY DIMENSION
There is another issue that deserves greater attention: candidate data.
A job application can contain highly valuable personal information.
Depending on the jurisdiction and circumstances, an applicant may provide:
- name;
- address;
- telephone number;
- email address;
- date of birth;
- education records;
- employment history;
- salary information;
- identity documents;
- professional references; and
- other sensitive information.
If a company maintains a permanent job advertisement primarily to build a candidate database, questions arise regarding:
Why was the data collected?
How will it be used?
How long will it be retained?
Who will have access to it?
Will it be shared with third parties?
Was the applicant adequately informed?
Therefore, the ghost-job discussion is not only about employment law.
It can also intersect with data-protection and privacy law.
XII. WHY JOB PLATFORMS MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE
Modern recruitment platforms can make ghost jobs particularly difficult to identify.
Algorithms may continuously recommend vacancies.
Automated systems may refresh listings.
Recruitment software may repost advertisements across multiple platforms.
A candidate may therefore see a position labelled:
"New"
even though the underlying vacancy has existed for months.
The candidate assumes that a new position has become available.
In reality, the employer may simply have refreshed the listing.
This creates an information problem.
The platform knows when the advertisement was originally created.
The employer knows whether the position is actually open.
The candidate often knows neither.
XIII. THE "40% GHOST JOB" CLAIM
Claims that a specific percentage—such as 40%—of job advertisements are ghost jobs should be treated carefully.
A statistic of this kind depends heavily on:
- the definition of "ghost job";
- the countries surveyed;
- the industries included;
- the sample size;
- the survey methodology;
- the period studied; and
- whether employers or job seekers supplied the underlying information.
There is a substantial difference between:
"40% of advertisements are stale"
and
"40% of employers intentionally advertise jobs they never intend to fill."
The first might be established through platform data.
The second requires evidence concerning employer intent.
Therefore, headline statistics should not be treated as definitive without examining the underlying methodology.
XIV. THE AUDIT TRAIL
One of the most important developments in modern corporate compliance is the increasing availability of digital records.
Recruitment activity leaves an electronic trail.
A company may have records showing:
- when a position was created;
- who approved it;
- when it was published;
- how many candidates applied;
- how many candidates were interviewed;
- who conducted the interviews;
- whether an offer was issued;
- whether the position was closed;
- whether the employee eventually joined; and
- how long the position remained open.
These records can potentially be compared against:
- payroll records;
- provident-fund records;
- tax deductions;
- employee registers;
- financial statements;
- workforce disclosures;
- grant-compliance reports; and
- internal approval records.
This creates an important principle:
Recruitment activity can increasingly be tested against actual employment outcomes.
A company may advertise 100 jobs.
But an audit trail can potentially reveal whether:
100 people were actually hired,
20 were hired,
or
nobody was hired.
That does not automatically prove wrongdoing.
It does, however, make unsupported claims easier to investigate.
XV. "PERFORMANCE OF EFFORT" VERSUS ACTUAL PERFORMANCE
The phrase "performance of effort" is useful for describing the conceptual problem, even though it should not be treated as a universal legal standard.
There is a fundamental difference between:
Effort
"We advertised 100 positions."
and:
Outcome
"We employed 100 qualifying individuals."
A regulatory programme may care about one, the other, or both.
Problems arise when evidence of the first is presented as though it establishes the second.
This distinction is particularly important in:
- employment subsidies;
- government grants;
- tax incentives;
- economic-development programmes;
- workforce commitments; and
- corporate public disclosures.
XVI. THE SOCIAL COST OF GHOST JOBS
The economic cost of ghost jobs is difficult to quantify, but the human cost is easier to understand.
A candidate may spend weeks believing that a particular opportunity is real.
They may postpone other applications.
They may prepare extensively.
They may decline another opportunity.
They may purchase equipment or training.
They may disclose sensitive personal information.
They may emotionally invest in the possibility of changing their career.
For unemployed candidates, the psychological impact can be even greater.
Repeated silence creates a particularly damaging cycle:
Application ? Hope ? Assessment ? Silence ? Reapplication ? More silence.
Eventually, candidates begin to question their own qualifications.
Yet sometimes the underlying problem may not be candidate quality at all.
The position itself may not have been genuinely available.
XVII. THE IMPLIED "GOOD FAITH" QUESTION
Employment relationships are generally governed by specific legal rules, contractual obligations and regulatory frameworks.
But recruitment also operates within a broader social expectation of good faith.
When a company advertises a position, candidates reasonably expect that the employer is at least seriously considering filling it.
That expectation does not mean every applicant must receive an interview.
Nor does it mean that every recruitment process must result in an appointment.
Businesses must retain the freedom to change their hiring plans.
The problem arises when the employer knows that the vacancy is not genuine but continues to represent it as an active opportunity without meaningful disclosure.
The ethical issue is therefore one of transparency and proportionality.
XVIII. WHAT WOULD A MORE TRANSPARENT RECRUITMENT SYSTEM LOOK LIKE?
A more transparent recruitment system could distinguish between different categories of vacancies.
For example:
CURRENT VACANCY
A position that has an approved budget and is actively being recruited for.
PIPELINE POSITION
A role for which the employer is collecting candidates for anticipated future requirements.
CONDITIONAL VACANCY
A position dependent upon a contract, investment, regulatory approval or other event.
TALENT COMMUNITY
A general database of prospective candidates without a specific current vacancy.
This simple classification would significantly improve transparency.
Candidates would know what they are applying for.
Employers could continue building talent pipelines without creating the impression that every advertisement represents an immediate vacancy.
XIX. WHAT SHOULD JOB SEEKERS DO?
The rise of ghost jobs makes reverse due diligence increasingly important.
Before spending several hours applying for a position, candidates can examine the available signals.
1. Check the Posting Date
A vacancy that has remained unchanged for six or nine months deserves additional scrutiny.
2. Check Whether It Has Been Reposted
Repeated reposting can indicate either continuing recruitment or an evergreen talent-pooling strategy.
It is not conclusive evidence of a ghost job.
3. Search the Company Website
If the position appears on a third-party platform but not on the company's own career page, investigate further.
4. Examine the Company's Workforce
Look for evidence of actual expansion rather than relying exclusively on the number of vacancies advertised.
5. Ask a Direct Question
A candidate can reasonably ask:
"Is this an approved current vacancy, or are you building a talent pipeline for future requirements?"
The answer can be highly informative.
6. Be Careful With Extensive Unpaid Assignments
Before spending ten hours on a substantial assignment, candidates should understand:
- what is being evaluated;
- who will see the work;
- whether the work will be used commercially; and
- whether the position is currently active.
7. Avoid Over-Disclosing Sensitive Information
Candidates should be cautious about providing unnecessary identity or financial information at an early stage of recruitment.
XX. WHAT SHOULD EMPLOYERS DO?
The solution does not require companies to stop maintaining talent pipelines.
Instead, employers can improve transparency.
A job advertisement could state:
"This is an active vacancy and we expect to make an appointment within the next 60 days."
Or:
"This is a talent-pipeline opportunity. There may not be an immediate vacancy, but applications will be considered for future openings."
Such wording would eliminate much of the ambiguity.
Employers could also:
- remove positions that have been indefinitely frozen;
- disclose when hiring is conditional;
- provide realistic recruitment timelines;
- avoid unnecessarily extensive unpaid assignments;
- establish internal controls over long-running advertisements; and
- maintain accurate records of recruitment activity.
XXI. THE FUTURE OF RECRUITMENT REGULATION
The future regulatory question may not simply be:
"Is this job real?"
Instead, regulators may increasingly ask:
"What exactly did the employer represent to the candidate?"
"Was the position genuinely open?"
"How long had the company known that it would not fill it?"
"Was candidate data collected for another purpose?"
"Was candidate work subsequently used commercially?"
"Were government incentives or other benefits connected to representations about employment?"
"Were investors or regulators given information that materially differed from the underlying reality?"
These are much more precise questions.
They also avoid treating every delayed recruitment process as misconduct.
XXII. THE BIGGER ISSUE: TRUST
Ultimately, the ghost-job phenomenon is about trust.
The employment market operates because millions of people make decisions based on information supplied by employers and recruitment platforms.
Candidates trust that:
A vacancy represents a genuine opportunity.
Employers trust that:
Applicants genuinely want the position.
Recruitment platforms trust that:
Advertised vacancies are materially accurate.
When one side systematically undermines that trust, the cost spreads across the entire market.
Candidates waste time.
Recruiters receive poorer applications.
Platforms become less reliable.
Employers receive less-qualified applicants.
And the labour market becomes less transparent.
CONCLUSION
The ghost job is more than an outdated advertisement.
It represents a deeper tension within the modern employment market: the difference between appearing to recruit and actually recruiting.
Some long-running vacancies are completely legitimate. Companies need talent pipelines. Hiring plans change. Budgets are frozen. Business strategies evolve.
But there is a meaningful distinction between:
"We may hire someone for this role in the future"
and
"We are actively hiring for this position now."
Candidates deserve to know which one they are dealing with.
The tax and regulatory dimensions also require precision. A job advertisement, by itself, does not establish actual employment, create a qualifying employee for a tax deduction, or satisfy a government job-creation commitment unless the applicable law or scheme specifically provides otherwise.
The real compliance risk arises when representations about recruitment, employment, incentives or corporate growth diverge materially from the underlying facts.
As recruitment becomes increasingly automated, that distinction will become more important—not less.
The future of hiring may therefore require a new principle:
Transparency should extend not only to salary, qualifications and job responsibilities, but also to the existence and status of the vacancy itself.
For job seekers, the practical lesson is simple:
Do not only apply for jobs. Investigate them.
Check when the position was posted.
Check whether it has been repeatedly refreshed.
Check whether the company is actually expanding.
Check whether the role appears on the employer's own website.
Ask whether the position is an immediate vacancy or a future talent-pipeline exercise.
And before investing hours in an assessment, understand what you are actually being assessed for—and whether there is a genuine position at the end of the process.
In an increasingly automated labour market, reverse due diligence may become just as important for candidates as traditional due diligence is for employers.
Because sometimes the most important question about a job advertisement is not:
"Am I qualified for this job?"
It is:
"Does this job actually exist?"
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