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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: Do you believe in ghosts because they're not just hanging

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Speaker 2: out in our creepiatics anymore. Ghosts have started to show

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Speaker 2: up in the job market.

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Speaker 3: Why does it feel like it's absolutely impossible to get

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Speaker 3: a job right now?

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Speaker 1: Companies are posting more fake job openings. Unfortunately, just like tender,

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Speaker 1: you're getting ghosted.

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Speaker 3: This means thousands of people, probably you, at some point,

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Speaker 3: will apply to a job online for absolutely no reason

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Speaker 3: and not here back, thinking it's your fault when it's not.

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Speaker 2: For months now, there have been a bunch of these

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Speaker 2: posts from job seekers complaining about so called ghost jobs.

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Speaker 2: These are jobs that companies advertise and post online, luring

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Speaker 2: in unsuspecting applicants, only to have those jobs disappear without

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Speaker 2: a trace. Ghost jobs have been haunting the job market

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Speaker 2: for a while, but now they seem to be showing

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Speaker 2: up in the data. A recent job market report showed

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Speaker 2: the number of jobs posted by companies was far higher

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Speaker 2: than the number of people actually being hired, and in May,

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Speaker 2: an online resource for job seekers asked over sixteen hundred

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Speaker 2: hiring managers whether their companies had listed ghost jobs. Stacy

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Speaker 2: Haller is the chief career advisor at resume Builder. She

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Speaker 2: told us what they found.

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Speaker 1: About thirty percent told us they currently have fake job postings.

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Speaker 1: Thirty percent is way too many. Forty percent said to

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Speaker 1: us they did it at some point during this year.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot.

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Speaker 2: But why would companies do this? Why would they post

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Speaker 2: jobs that don't exist.

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Speaker 3: Today?

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Speaker 2: On the show We Go ghost Job Hunting, we take

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Speaker 2: a look at the strange phenomenon, why it's happening, and

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Speaker 2: what all of the recent sightings can tell us about

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Speaker 2: what's going on in the economy. This is the big take.

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Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Holder. To get to the bottom of the

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Speaker 2: ghost jobs mystery, I called up Molly Smith. She's an

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Speaker 2: editor on the US Economy team at Bloomberg who started

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Speaker 2: investigating this trend last year. So, Molly, what is a

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Speaker 2: ghost job?

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Speaker 3: So think about how you hear about this. A lot

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Speaker 3: in dating, right that people get ghosted on these dating apps,

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Speaker 3: that you maybe reach out to a person and you

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Speaker 3: never hear back from them again. It's kind of like that,

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Speaker 3: except in a job posting. There are these jobs that

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Speaker 3: people are applying to online and are not hearing back

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Speaker 3: from the recruiter. It doesn't seem like there's a real

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Speaker 3: intent to hire, or at least an urgent one. It's

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Speaker 3: been really frustrating a lot of job seekers. They feel

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Speaker 3: like they're being gas lit and that these postings are

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Speaker 3: out there and that they're just not really genuine from

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Speaker 3: the companies that are posting them.

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Speaker 2: So it's not just that these jobs are ghost jobs,

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Speaker 2: they're literally ghosting applicants.

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Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 2: When Molly first got interested in the phenomenon, she started

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Speaker 2: by looking at the data, in this case government data

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Speaker 2: the tracks how many job openings there are in the economy.

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Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, the number peaked at twelve million

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Speaker 2: job openings, and it's still elevated, hovering around eight million

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Speaker 2: job openings. But that didn't seem to line up with

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Speaker 2: the vibes, which made people wonder was this number overstating

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Speaker 2: just how strong the labor market was.

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Speaker 3: We started hearing anecdotally of people who were applying for

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Speaker 3: these jobs and just getting these wild responses. There was

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Speaker 3: somebody we saw in a Reddit thread on jobs saying

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Speaker 3: they had applied to a position for a local grocery

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Speaker 3: store online, got rejected in the same day, and then

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Speaker 3: went into the store to ask what happened, and they said, Oh,

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Speaker 3: we're not actually hiring right now, we're just getting some

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Speaker 3: applicants together. Why you know, this seems to be like,

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Speaker 3: from what some recruiters have told us, an explicit tactic

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Speaker 3: that recruiters will do in order to generate a pool

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Speaker 3: of applicants for when a position does actually become available.

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Speaker 3: So it's something that you can do in advance to

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Speaker 3: maybe start filtering, and then when that need is real

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Speaker 3: and when it is urgent, you already have a whole

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Speaker 3: lot of people to choose from.

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Speaker 2: So seeing who's out there collecting their resumes but not

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Speaker 2: actually planning on giving a job to anyone until the

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Speaker 2: employer is ready exactly, let's give companies the benefit of

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Speaker 2: the doubt. What are some of the sort of non

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Speaker 2: sinister reasons why they might be posting ghost jobs.

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Speaker 3: We talked to a lot of recruiters about this, and

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Speaker 3: I think we've all seen what job hostings are like online.

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Speaker 3: It's pretty easy to fire off your resume and send

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Speaker 3: off a ton of applications at want and recruiters will

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Speaker 3: say that they've just been anundated with so many that

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Speaker 3: it isn't humanly possible for them to reply to all

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Speaker 3: the applications that they've received.

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Speaker 2: Is there also a situation where some of these job

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Speaker 2: sites are leaving up jobs after they've been filled, Like,

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Speaker 2: are sites like LinkedIn and indeed really up to date

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Speaker 2: on what kinds of jobs they're advertising.

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Speaker 3: So we talked to all of the platforms when we

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Speaker 3: were reporting this story about a year ago, and it's

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Speaker 3: interesting because we heard from Indeed that these ghost postings

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Speaker 3: are not an issue, but then they also said that

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Speaker 3: they remove tens of millions of them every month, So

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Speaker 3: it's like, okay, so which what is it. Some of

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Speaker 3: these postings can also be a bit duplicative. It seems

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Speaker 3: like I've seen some companies where you're hiring for a position,

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Speaker 3: but it could be filled in potentially three different regions,

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Speaker 3: and that represents three individual job postings even though it's

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Speaker 3: really just one job. So that could also be a

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Speaker 3: bit misleading. Then when you're looking at Wow, there's like

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Speaker 3: so many job openings in the economy, but maybe not

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Speaker 3: all of them are really individually different.

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Speaker 2: But there are also some other reasons being thrown around

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Speaker 2: for why we're seeing these ghost jobs that do seem

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Speaker 2: a little bit shady or at least end up making

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Speaker 2: job applicants feel gas lit, like those recruiters who admitted

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Speaker 2: to posting jobs they weren't actually hiring for just to

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Speaker 2: build up a pool of resumes for the future. That's

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Speaker 2: just one reason to post a job. I asked Molly

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Speaker 2: about another scenario, what about internal hires. I've definitely seen

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Speaker 2: jobs posted that end up getting taken down really quickly

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Speaker 2: and later learn that the job has been given to

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Speaker 2: an internal candidate.

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Speaker 3: So recruiters have told us that some postings need to

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Speaker 3: be available externally as well, in order to ensure that

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Speaker 3: the posting was fair, that they fully vetted a diverse

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Speaker 3: pool of candidates, and that it didn't exclude people because

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Speaker 3: they are external, and that you're really just getting the

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Speaker 3: widest pool available. But oftentimes a lot of job postings

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Speaker 3: may live on an internal company's portal for perhaps several weeks,

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Speaker 3: maybe a month, and then we'll be posted externally in

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Speaker 3: that time, though it's very possible that the job already

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Speaker 3: could have been filled and then it's only being posted

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Speaker 3: externally to give the appearance.

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Speaker 1: I guess that it.

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Speaker 3: Was posted fairly and given everybody a chance, even if

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Speaker 3: the decision had already been made at that point.

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Speaker 2: So it's about optics.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one way of putting it.

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Speaker 2: We asked Stacy Haller at resume Builder what she'd heard

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Speaker 2: from the hiring managers they surveyed in that may report,

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Speaker 2: and those managers admitted optics are a big part of it.

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Speaker 1: So what they told us was many of them are

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Speaker 1: posting jobs, so they're on employees feel like, oh, we're

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Speaker 1: hiring more and you won't have to work so hard.

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Speaker 1: The workers are coming into the rescue, or they're telling

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Speaker 1: us they want you to believe the company is growing

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Speaker 1: and expanding when it's not.

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Speaker 2: Resume builders survey had a limited sample size and it

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Speaker 2: relied on hiring managers willing to self report their reasons

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Speaker 2: for posting ghost jobs. When it comes to official comprehensive

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Speaker 2: data on all this, there's a statistic that the Federal

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Speaker 2: Reserve uses to gauge the strength of the labor market.

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Speaker 2: It's called the Jolts Report for the Job Openings and

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Speaker 2: Labored Turnover Survey. Here's Bloomberg's Molly Smith again.

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Speaker 3: This is a survey that comes from the Bureau of

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Speaker 3: Labor Statistics that measures how many job openings there are

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Speaker 3: in the economy in a given month, and a lot

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Speaker 3: of economists we're thinking that it was just overstating how

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Speaker 3: strong the labor market is.

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Speaker 2: So molly as a self appointed ghost jobs buster called

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Speaker 2: up someone at the Bureau of Labor Statistics who's been

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Speaker 2: working on the jolt survey for over twenty years.

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Speaker 3: He actually provided a lot of great insight that really

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Speaker 3: stands more to the integrity of the jolt data and

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Speaker 3: saying how vetted these firms are, that this is a

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Speaker 3: survey of twenty one thousand business establishments, it's not scraping

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Speaker 3: online job postings, and that there's also some follow up

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Speaker 3: that's done to see, well, what is the hiring like

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Speaker 3: at these companies. You know, they can't verify that every

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Speaker 3: posting leads to an actual hire, but if there's a

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Speaker 3: big deviation between the two, they look at that and

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Speaker 3: they will pick out the numbers that don't mesh together.

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Speaker 3: And something else the joltz data does too, is that

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Speaker 3: in order to be considered active, a posting needs to

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Speaker 3: have the intent to hire within thirty days. The real

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Speaker 3: issues seem to be more with these posts that are online,

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Speaker 3: that the vetting process is maybe not as strong as

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Speaker 3: what the Bureau of Labor Statistics does and well, if

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Speaker 3: these companies that the job posts are usually listed on,

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Speaker 3: whether it's LinkedIn indeed is a recruiter. They have guidelines

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Speaker 3: that are meant to filter these things out, but it

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Speaker 3: seems like there are posts that inevitably do fall through

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Speaker 3: the cracks.

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Speaker 2: But ghost jobs are haunting more than just internet job boards.

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Speaker 2: If they're discouraging for job seekers, they're also frustrating to

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Speaker 2: everyone from policymakers to business owners trying to get a

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Speaker 2: sense of how well the economy is doing. We get

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Speaker 2: into all that after the break, so we know what

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Speaker 2: these ghost jobs mean for everyday workers trying to apply

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Speaker 2: for a job. It means frustration, disappointment, sometimes confusion. But

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Speaker 2: what does the existence of these ghost jobs mean about

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Speaker 2: the job market overall?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's tough to make an inference about the

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Speaker 3: whole economy from this, but I guess like if we're

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Speaker 3: looking at just the data that's out there, that we

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Speaker 3: can still say that demand for workers is strong, that yes,

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Speaker 3: the unemployment rate has been rising in recent months, but

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Speaker 3: it's at four point one percent that's still historically very low.

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Speaker 2: The latest job's numbers will be released on Friday, including

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Speaker 2: the unemployment rate, and all eyes will be on it.

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Speaker 2: If that unemployment rate rises like it did last month,

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Speaker 2: it could mean the job market is starting to sour already.

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Speaker 2: We saw some worrying numbers on Thursday. Weekly jobless claims

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Speaker 2: rose more than expected to their highest level in nearly

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Speaker 2: a year. And according to Molly, there's another even wonkier

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Speaker 2: data point economists are paying attention to.

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Speaker 3: There's this ratio that we look at how how many

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Speaker 3: job openings are there for every unemployed worker aka how

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Speaker 3: many postings are there for every person whom I want

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Speaker 3: a job? And right now that ratio is at one

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Speaker 3: point two. This is more in line with the job

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Speaker 3: market we saw in twenty nineteen, and that it's not

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Speaker 3: the crazy tight job market that we saw in twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty two, where there were two jobs for every unemployed person.

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Speaker 2: So the job market isn't as tight as it was,

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Speaker 2: which might be a good thing when it comes to

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Speaker 2: reining in wage growth and inflation, but it's not great

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Speaker 2: for workers.

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Speaker 3: I mean for workers, it can certainly be frustrating because

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Speaker 3: in that environment you were getting these historic wage gains.

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Speaker 3: Pay is not going up by nearly as much now

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Speaker 3: as it was then. But again, it's not like the

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Speaker 3: job market has fallen off a cliff. We've just gone

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Speaker 3: from an extremely, extremely hot one to still a really

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Speaker 3: good one.

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Speaker 2: What has changed is who has the power in the

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Speaker 2: labor market. It's now shifted back towards employers, and that

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Speaker 2: means fewer people are quitting their jobs. We're no longer

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Speaker 2: living in the great resignation of the pandemic these days,

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Speaker 2: it's more like the Big stay. But Molly says that

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Speaker 2: isn't a reason to be totally alarmed.

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Speaker 3: I don't want people to be scared to think that

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Speaker 3: this job market is horrible. But the way that I

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Speaker 3: describe it to my friends is that it's not a

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Speaker 3: job market that I would quit right now my job

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Speaker 3: if I had a good gig, because it certainly doesn't

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Speaker 3: look to be one that's favoring the job applicants.

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Speaker 2: So the job market not horrible, but the slowdown does

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Speaker 2: have everybody's attention. The job market is one of the

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Speaker 2: most important parts of the US economy, and if hiring

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Speaker 2: slows down too much or unemployment rises too fast, it

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Speaker 2: could signal the US economy is heading in a bad direction.

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Speaker 2: The job market came up this week when Federal Reserve

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Speaker 2: cher Jerome Powell answered reporter's questions about whether or not

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Speaker 2: he would be cutting interest rates next month. The question

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Speaker 2: really is is one of are we worried about a

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Speaker 2: sharper downturn in the labor market, And the answer is,

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Speaker 2: we're watching really careful for that. It's a complicated calculus

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Speaker 2: for the Fed. A slowdown in hiring could be a

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Speaker 2: sign that the economy is slowing and they should cut

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Speaker 2: interest rates to help boost economic activity. But also, when

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Speaker 2: the job market was really hot, employers were offering more

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Speaker 2: and more money to lure workers to open jobs. To

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Speaker 2: offset paying workers more, companies raise the prices of the

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Speaker 2: stuff they were selling, and all that contributed to rising inflation.

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Speaker 3: I mean, workers would love to still be getting the

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Speaker 3: kinds of pay increases that they were a couple of

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Speaker 3: years ago, and to see that they had such bargaining

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Speaker 3: power when it came to negotiating with employers for different

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Speaker 3: kinds of perks, and that's just not the same kind

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Speaker 3: of job market we're in right now. But again, I

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Speaker 3: don't think any of us thought that was a sustainable environment.

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Speaker 3: It was awesome while it lasted. If that was the

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Speaker 3: position you were in, but it just wasn't ever going

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Speaker 3: to last.

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Speaker 2: Are we at a turning point in the job market

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Speaker 2: right now?

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Speaker 3: I think that's what everyone's trying to figure out. We've

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Speaker 3: kind of been talking about this with my colleagues of like,

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Speaker 3: right now, we're at what we would call a job

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Speaker 3: market that's running quote at trend. That's kind of normal,

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Speaker 3: you know, so to speak, and that's where you of

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Speaker 3: course would want to be, you know, something that is

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Speaker 3: steady state. So it's really tough right now to say

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Speaker 3: that this is like a bad job market again. It's

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Speaker 3: just softening very very gradually from a really really hot pace.

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Speaker 2: Now everyone is hoping that as the job market cools off,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't get too cold. But as workers and companies

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Speaker 2: navigate this new normal, where does that leave ghost jobs?

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Speaker 2: Probably not going away anytime soon. Companies have gotten a

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Speaker 2: lot of power back in this job market, and many

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Speaker 2: hiring managers reported to resume Builder that they were happy

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Speaker 2: with the results of their fake job postings.

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Speaker 1: Fake job postings in ghost jobs isn't new. It's been

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Speaker 1: happening for a while, but it's kind of taken off.

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Speaker 1: So my heart goes to job seekers who now have

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Speaker 1: to understand this part of the process.

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Speaker 2: So at least for now, it looks like it'll be

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Speaker 2: up to job seekers to try and suss out which

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Speaker 2: job postings are real. That, of course means more work

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Speaker 2: on top of all the work that already goes into

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Speaker 2: looking for a job. What advice do you have for

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Speaker 2: people who want to avoid getting misled or gas lit

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Speaker 2: by a ghost job.

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Speaker 3: I think one way maybe to do it is to

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Speaker 3: see if the job posting exists on a company's website

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Speaker 3: as well as on a platform, trace it back to

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Speaker 3: the original source, like is it actually there? And if

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Speaker 3: you do have some doubts, you know, maybe if there

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Speaker 3: is a contact to get to the recruiter directly. I

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Speaker 3: think everybody just really wants to know that there's a

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Speaker 3: human on the other side. That there's so much technology

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Speaker 3: and generative AI and so much of what we do now,

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Speaker 3: maybe without us even realizing it, that there still is

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Speaker 3: comfort to know that when you call somebody that there

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Speaker 3: is going to be a person on the other end.

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Speaker 3: Same with dating, same with applying to jobs.

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Speaker 2: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.

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Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Julia Press. It was fact

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Speaker 2: checked by Adrian Atapia and edited by Stacy Vennicksmith and

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Speaker 2: Aaron Edwards. It was mixed by Blake Naples. Our senior

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Speaker 2: producers are Kim Gettlelson and Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor

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Speaker 2: is Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole beemsterbor is our executive producer. Sage

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Speaker 2: Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks so much for listening.

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Speaker 2: Please follow and review The Big Take wherever you get

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Speaker 2: your podcasts. It helps new listeners find the show. We'll

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Speaker 2: be back tomorrow