As I’m still looking for a job, this piece on ghost job postings is particularly irksome.
The labour market is tightening – and it’s getting harder to find a job. In the wake of the Great Resignation, which drove more job vacancies than employers could fill, workers often had their pick of open roles. Now, they have largely lost their leverage among layoffs and budget cuts, and those open positions are increasingly rare.
Still, roles do exist – or at least appear to. Job boards like LinkedIn and Indeed continue to advertise open positions, and workers are actively submitting applications. Yet despite an influx of highly qualified candidates, plenty of desirable job adverts have languished on digital platforms with an increasingly common label: “Posted 30+ days ago”.
While the listings may be old, job seekers generally still assume companies are actively hiring for the roles. The truth is more complicated. Some of these are simply not-yet-removed adverts for jobs that have been filled – but some were never meant to be filled at all. These are ‘ghost jobs’, and they’re becoming an increasingly common – and problematic – obstacle for job seekers.
Snip.
Despite the influx of candidates, a staggering number of listings don’t result in hires. Revelio Labs, a US-based workforce intelligence firm, showed that the ratio of hires per job posting fell below 0.5 in 2023, meaning that more than half of listings did not result in an employer turning an applicant into an employee.
Clarify Capital, a New York-based business loan provider, surveyed 1,000 hiring managers, and found nearly seven in 10 jobs stay open for more than 30 days, with 10% unfilled for more than half a year. Half the respondents reported they keep job listings open indefinitely because they “always open to new people”. More than one in three respondents said they kept the listings active to build a pool of applicants in case of turnover – not because a role needs to be filled in a timely manner.
The posted roles are more than just a talent vacuum sucking up resumes from applicants. They are also a tool for shaping perception inside and outside of the company. More than 40% of hiring managers said they list jobs they aren’t actively trying to fill to give the impression that the company is growing. A similar share said the job listings are made to motivate employees, while 34% said the jobs are posted to placate overworked staff who may be hoping for additional help to be brought on.
“Ghost jobs are everywhere,” says Geoffrey Scott, senior content manager and hiring manager at Resume Genius, a US company that helps workers design their resumes. “We discovered a massive 1.7 million potential ghost job openings on LinkedIn just in the US,” says Scott. In the UK, StandOut CV, a London-based career resources company, found more than a third of job listings in 2023 were ghost jobs, defined as listings posted for more than 30 days.
It was bad enough looking for a job during the Biden Recession, and the ghost job listings just make things worse.
Now you’ll have to excuse me. I have some job applications to fill out…
Tags: Biden Recession, economy, fraud
A recent local expansion by a large Chinese tire manufacturer has led to their abandoning an existing location and moving into a much larger facility that holds both warehouse facilities and corporate offices.
Upon asking one of their warehouse workers if the number of employees would also expand, I was told that all future hires would be vetted through a temporary agency prior to a job offer being extended and all new hires would be placed on a 90 day probationary status.
I have no idea whether IT companies are similarly hesitant to bring on new hires but you may have a better likelihood of employment if you indicate a willingness to accept a job on a trial basis.
Speaking of China, I was ridiculed for argued that gold would be a better use for your money than real estate and it seems that a lot of people now agree:
“Gold is trading at an all time high and gold ETF demand has surged in the past week with almost $600 million of net inflows into gold ETFs globally,” said Rebecca Sin, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.
“Demand in Mainland China could continue as investors look to diversify their holdings with commodities and foreign ETFs.”
H/T ZeroHedge
Not only ‘ghost job openings’, but also outright ‘ghost jobs’ plague America’s official economic statistics.
There is, right now, a large divergence between the BLS’ Household Survey and Establishment Survey in their monthly Current Employment Situation report. The Household Survey has been showing weak to declining employment since early 2022, while the Establishment Survey shows stirring employment growth. The gap between surveys now exceeds 2 million. BLS claims the divergence is due to immigration, but this is false.
This divergence occurs when BLS is fluffing for the (then) current Administration. It is easy for BLS to ‘adjust’ the Establishment Survey numbers to whatever goal they seek, while the Household Survey is more difficult to adjust because the raw data is much greater and collected by other government departments (mostly Census).
In recent times, the divergence was worst under the Clinton Administration, at over +7 million fake jobs in the Establishment Survey. It also occurred repeatedly late in the first term of the Obama Administration, when his reelection was in doubt.
You need to find and cultivate a job recruiter active in your field. They know where the real jobs are and won’t waste your time. The internet has severely disrupted their profession, but they still exist and can give you frank advice.
“The labour market is tightening – and it’s getting harder to find a job.”
Whoever wrote that should be strangled with a bent paper clip. It’s the other way around, dammit!
“When the labor market’s tight, tell your boss to fly a kite.
When the labor market’s loose, doing that will cook your goose!”
Oil and gas is hiring. That’s not just a random comment. Check the email I used. Jobs in Houston and the basin. I also know a company hiring at JSC.
“Oil and gas is hiring.”
If I lived in (Austin), Texas the oil patch would hold a strong attraction for me. Most analysts believe the price of oil will continue to increase over the next few years. This will bring marginal fields into production which will necessitate new hires to increase production.
Texas may be better positioned to add to the labor force than any other state.