Ghost Jobs are inexcusable and are appearing EVERYWHERE now

We need to talk about ghost jobs. I think it's time to call it out on a large scale. It's not just frustrating for job seekers; it's a systemic issue that wastes time, misleads stockholders, and cheats governments out of the truth. It’s fraud.

Every day, thousands of people are spending hours tailoring resumes and writing cover letters for jobs that never existed in the first place. That’s not just disheartening — it’s abusive. It takes advantage of people’s hope and desperation, especially in economic climates where job security is vanishing and cost of living is skyrocketing.

But the damage doesn’t stop at the job seeker. Ghost jobs:

• Mislead investors and shareholders into thinking a company is growing when it’s not. Hiring surges are often interpreted as signs of expansion — but it’s a lie.
• Manipulate government metrics to maintain the appearance of labor demand, skewing job market statistics and misleading policymakers who use these numbers to shape economic support and employment programs.
• Help companies secure tax breaks and grants by appearing more active in hiring than they really are. That’s public money, misallocated based on a fiction.

I view it as a cultural mistake. We’ve normalized dishonesty at a corporate level and shrugged it off as “just how the game is played.” But workers are not pawns for companies to toy with to inflate their numbers. And we're the ones taking the hit.

We need legislation that bans ghost job postings.
At minimum, companies should be required to:

1. Disclose whether a posting is for an active, budgeted role.
2. Remove listings within a reasonable timeframe if they are no longer hiring.
3. Be held legally accountable for posting misleading job ads — with financial penalties that discourage the practice.

The job market already feels like a slot machine. We don’t need companies rigging the machine further with fake listings. This is a bipartisan issue — it’s about transparency and fairness.

I think it's time to petition against this practice or call it out on a mass level.