If you are in the position of trying to find a new job, of course you don't want to waste your time applying for these ghost jobs. But it turns out all those open job postings that you see online might not even be real. Ghost jobs are a phenomenon that have existed for a long time, but they've come to light much more in recent years and they've become much more of a significant issue in the job market. Four in 10 companies posted fake job listings in 2024, and three in 10 are currently advertising for a role that isn't real, according to a May survey from Resume Builder. The rise of ghost job posting definitely points to a cooling in the economy. We are seeing that employers are more hesitant to make that hire, and it just points to the fact that demand for talent is slowing down.

如果你正在努力尋找一份新工作，當然不想浪費時間去申請這些 "幽靈工作"。但事實證明，你在網上看到的那些招聘啟事可能根本不是真的。虛假工作是一種存在已久的現象，但近年來，這種現象越來越多地暴露出來，成為就業市場上一個更為嚴重的問題。根據 Resume Builder 今年 5 月的一項調查，每 10 家公司中就有 4 家在 2024 年發佈了虛假招聘資訊，每 10 家公司中就有 3 家目前正在發佈虛假職位廣告。虛假招聘廣告的增加無疑表明經濟正在降溫。我們看到，僱主在招聘時更加猶豫不決，這恰恰說明人才需求正在

Here's why ghost jobs are on the rise.

以下是 "幽靈工作 "呈上升趨勢的原因。

Ghost jobs are actually not scams. They're from real companies, but they are openings that don't actually exist. That company is not actually hiring for that role at this moment in time.

幽靈工作其實不是騙局。它們來自真實的公司，但實際上並不存在。該公司目前實際上並沒有招聘該職位。

They might be interested in hiring for that role in the future, or maybe they were hiring for it, but due to budget cuts, those roles were closed or put on hold.

他們可能有興趣在未來招聘該職位，也可能他們正在招聘該職位，但由於預算削減，這些職位被關閉或擱置。

A ghost job is a job that is not a real job. It's a job that is not a real job.

所謂 "幽靈工作"，就是一份不是真正工作的工作。這是一份不是真正工作的工作。

A ghost job is essentially a job that remains open online and never gets filled. The occurrence of ghost jobs has increased quite dramatically over the past five years. We're seeing a decline in the rate of hires to job postings, and that rate has basically halved over the past five years.

所謂 "幽靈工作"，實質上就是在網上公開招聘但從未有人應聘的工作。在過去五年中，"幽靈職位 "的出現率大幅上升。我們看到招聘職位的錄用率在下降，在過去五年裡，錄用率基本上下降了一半。

So whereas in 2019, we saw eight hires per 10 job postings, we are now seeing four hires per 10 job postings, which of course is quite a dramatic drop. This is a pretty worrying development because it just softens the signal of what a job posting really means, and whether there is truly a hiring intention behind that from the employer point of view.

是以，在 2019 年，我們看到每 10 個招聘資訊中有 8 人被錄用，而現在我們看到每 10 個招聘資訊中有 4 人被錄用，這當然是一個相當大的下降。這是一個相當令人擔憂的事態發展，因為它只是弱化了招聘資訊的真正含義，以及從僱主的角度來看，招聘資訊背後是否真的有招聘意向。

I think we're seeing a lot of ghost jobs lately for the same reason that I think a lot of people keep their Tinder profiles up, even if they're not actively looking for a relationship. It's because we like to keep our options open for whether it's a good or a bad thing.

我認為，最近我們看到了很多 "幽靈工作"，其原因與我認為很多人即使不積極尋找戀情，也會在 Tinder 上保留個人資料的原因是一樣的。這是因為我們喜歡保持選擇的開放性，無論這是件好事還是壞事。

Companies are no different. Companies know that talent is not always available when they are ready to hire, so they want to be able to attract applications from potentially great candidates, even if they're not right now able to give that person a job.

公司也不例外。公司知道，人才並不總是在他們準備好招聘時才會出現，是以他們希望能夠吸引潛在的優秀應聘者申請，即使他們現在還不能給這個人一份工作。

Because of market visibility, if they are regularly listing their job openings, that will enhance a company's image, potentially showing them as a growing and thriving organization, and maybe that's a signal to investors or clients or competitors that their company is expanding the brand perception. Market research. Some companies, they have no idea what is a salary, what are the skill sets in demand, so they probably are posting to get that data. What are you expecting as a salary if you want to be in that role in this industry? So that's why they're collecting those data so that they can build a total compensation package and build the key performance indicator and net promoter scores for the companies if they really don't know how the recruiting works. So maybe it's for market insights to go into the future, but that does not benefit the job seekers at all.

由於市場能見度的原因，如果他們定期公佈職位空缺，就會提升公司的形象，有可能顯示出他們是一個不斷成長和蓬勃發展的組織，也許這對投資者、客戶或競爭對手來說是一個信號，表明他們的公司正在擴大品牌認知度。市場調研。有些公司根本不知道薪水是多少，需求的技能組合是什麼，是以他們可能會發布招聘資訊來獲取這些數據。如果你想在這個行業擔任這個職位，你期望的薪水是多少？如果他們真的不知道招聘是如何進行的，那麼這就是他們收集這些數據的原因，這樣他們就可以為公司制定總體薪酬方案，制定關鍵績效指標和淨促進得分。所以，這也許是為了洞

That's such a bad employer branding.

這真是一個糟糕的僱主品牌。

The U.S. job market significantly slowed in July 2024. However, if you look at the overall labor market, it's still healthy. There's no question this report came in cooler than expected, but over the past three months, payrolls are up $170,000.

2024 年 7 月，美國就業市場明顯放緩。然而，如果你看看整個勞動力市場，它仍然是健康的。毫無疑問，這份報告比預期的要冷，但在過去的三個月裡，薪資增長了 17 萬美元。

That's certainly a good enough clip to keep the labor market healthy.

這無疑是一個足以讓勞動力市場保持健康的好成績。

According to June's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, commonly known as JOLTS, the number of unemployed persons per job opening stands at 0.8, indicating a tight labor market.

根據 6 月份的職位空缺和勞動力流動調查（俗稱 JOLTS），每個職位空缺的失業人數為 0.8，表明勞動力市場緊張。

Job openings and labor turnover known as JOLTS, JOLTS coming in near expectations, $8,184,000. Actually, that's better than expectations.

被稱為 "JOLTS "的職位空缺和勞動力流動情況，JOLTS接近預期，為818.4萬美元。事實上，這比預期要好。

Despite a tight labor market on paper, many workers are still struggling to find jobs, indicating a disconnect between the data and the real-life experiences of job seekers.

儘管紙面上的勞動力市場很緊張，但許多工人仍在為找工作而苦苦掙扎，這表明數據與求職者的真實經歷之間存在脫節。

The rise of ghost jobs is muddying the job support. It's making it harder for the Fed to make decisions and understand what the labor market looks like. Anecdotally, people will tell you that it's very tough out there. We've talked about this notion of unhireables, people who are out of work, got laid off and just can't find a job. They can't buy an interview. There are people coming out of college and they're finding that they're putting out 500, 800, 1,000 applications and they can't get an interview, let alone a job. And yet when you look at the base numbers on the job boards, it would seem like we're in an incredibly robust hiring market and that ghost jobs are creating a fake perception.

幽靈工作崗位的增加使就業支持變得模糊不清。這使得美聯儲更難做出決策，也更難了解勞動力市場的情況。從軼事來看，人們會告訴你外面的世界很艱難。我們曾討論過 "不可僱傭者 "這一概念，即那些失業、失業、找不到工作的人。他們找不到面試機會。有些人剛從大學畢業，他們發現自己投出了 500、800 或 1000 份求職履歷，卻得不到面試機會，更別提工作了。然而，當你查看招聘網站上的基本數字時，你會發現我們的招聘市場似乎非常繁榮，而 "幽靈工作 "正在製造一種虛假的印象。

And no one knows how fake that perception is. And the Fed and economists are trying to understand what's real and what isn't. And they haven't yet figured out the silver bullet to understand. Over the past decade, JOLTS shows a marked increase in job openings for any given level of unemployment. And this is making people think, oh, well, maybe these openings are real openings. I would push back against that a little bit because JOLTS specifically asks employers to report only jobs that they could fill within the next 30 days. Most ghost jobs, that is jobs that employers don't intend to fill that soon or ever, either intentionally or by mistake. Most of those shouldn't appear in JOLTS at all. The Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that the JOLTS program doesn't use job listings for estimating job openings. While familiar with the term ghost jobs, the program believes it does not have any data related to the phenomenon.

沒有人知道這種看法有多虛假。美聯儲和經濟學家們正試圖瞭解什麼是真實的，什麼是虛假的。但他們還沒有找到解決問題的靈丹妙藥。在過去的十年中，JOLTS顯示，在任何給定的失業率水準下，職位空缺都在顯著增加。這讓人們認為，哦，好吧，也許這些空缺是真正的空缺。我想反駁一下這種說法，因為 JOLTS 特別要求僱主只報告他們可以在未來 30 天內填補的職位。大多數 "幽靈職位"，即僱主不打算很快或永遠填補的職位，無論是有意還是無意。其中大部分根本就不應該出現在 JOLTS 中。勞工統計局表示，JOLTS 項目並不使用職

It's really hard as a job seeker to spot a ghost job. There are some signs.

作為求職者，要發現一份 "幽靈工作 "真的很難。有一些跡象

If you look at a job and you see that it's been open for over a month, sometimes it might say it's been open for many months. Some of the job boards will give an indication of how many people have applied for a job. And so if you see that a job has been open for 90 days and 10,000 people have applied, putting your application in your 10,001, your number, it's probably a ghost job.

如果您查看一個職位，發現該職位已空缺一個多月，有時可能會顯示已空缺數月。有些招聘網站會顯示有多少人申請過該職位。是以，如果你看到一個職位已經開放了 90 天，有 10,000 人申請過，把你的申請放在你的 10,001 號裡，你的號碼，這可能是一個幽靈職位。

So my firm uncovered that there's 1.7 million job openings on LinkedIn in 2023, as of the date of the article, that were older than a month. And these we've determined to be potential ghost jobs.

我的公司發現，截至文章發表之日，2023 年 LinkedIn 上有 170 萬個職位空缺的時間超過了一個月。我們已經確定這些都是潛在的 "幽靈職位"。

They're not necessarily ghost jobs. And that is the difficulty with ghost jobs is that they're hard to fully prove. So there are ghost jobs out there for sure. They're rising and they're a problem, but it's not always easy to completely pin them down. And companies don't want to admit that they're posting ghost jobs because it looks bad for them. It's anti-employee, it's anti-job seeker, and it's very pro-company. So they want to be careful about that. So they're not going to openly admit that they're posting ghost jobs. Another red flag for a job posting that's potentially a ghost job is when it's a vague job title. So for example, if they say we're looking for a video superstar, or we're looking for a project manager superstar, or they use some sort of identification that doesn't really say much, it could be an indication that they are just keeping a job opening available so they can attract talent and get a nice little pool of potential talent that they can pull from when and if they do need to hire.

它們不一定是幽靈工作。幽靈工作的難點在於很難完全證明。所以，肯定有 "幽靈工作 "存在。它們在增加，是個問題，但要完全查清並不容易。公司也不願意承認他們發佈了幽靈職位，因為這對他們來說很不利。這既不利於員工，也不利於求職者，而且非常有利於公司。是以，他們要對此小心謹慎。是以，他們不會公開承認自己發佈的是幽靈職位。另一個可能是 "幽靈職位 "的招聘資訊是模糊的職位名稱。是以，舉例來說，如果他們說我們正在尋找一位視頻巨星，或者我們正在尋找一位項目經理巨星，或者他們使用了某種並沒有說明太多問題的標識，這可能表明

Job boards are the most popular places for job seekers to find opportunities.

招聘網站是求職者尋找工作機會最常用的地方。

Indeed, ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn are among the most popular job boards in the U.S.

Indeed、ZipRecruiter 和 LinkedIn 是美國最受歡迎的招聘網站之一。

However, there's growing concern that some of these platforms aren't doing enough to address the issue of fake job postings. Job posting platforms can address ghost jobs. The first line of addressing them is taking full responsibility for them, even if they're not the ones posting it. That's totally understandable, but it's still their site.

然而，越來越多的人擔心，其中一些平臺在解決虛假招聘資訊問題上做得不夠。招聘平臺可以解決虛假招聘的問題。解決這些問題的第一道防線就是對它們負全責，即使不是它們發佈的。這完全可以理解，但這仍然是他們的網站。

It's their platform, and I believe they should take 100 percent responsibility.

這是他們的平臺，我認為他們應該承擔百分之百的責任。

They should be verifying, you know, they could implement an enhanced job post verification method. So potentially they're reaching out to multiple people in the hiring process, an HR person, a hiring manager, or verifying that person via social media.

他們應該進行驗證，你知道，他們可以採用一種增強的職位發佈驗證方法。是以，他們有可能在招聘過程中接觸到多個人員，包括人力資源人員、招聘經理，或通過社交媒體對該人員進行驗證。

I would love to see these job posting sites like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and Indeed, hold companies a little bit more accountable for being transparent about how long the listings have been up and how recently the position was hired for, if they're going to continue to keep the listing up. They should have options somewhere to say, we recently hired this position.

我很希望看到 LinkedIn、ZipRecruiter 和 Indeed 等招聘網站能讓公司承擔更多責任，如果他們要繼續發佈招聘資訊，就必須透明地說明招聘資訊發佈了多長時間，以及該職位最近的招聘情況。他們應該在某處設置選項，說明我們最近招聘了這個職位。

You can keep it up at that point. You can make it clear that, hey, if you think you're a good fit, go ahead and drop your application. Maybe if this doesn't work out, we'll reach back out to you.

在這一點上，你可以保持下去。你可以明確表示，嘿，如果你覺得你很合適，那就放棄申請吧。如果不合適，我們會再聯繫你。

CNBC reached out to a few major job posting platforms for comment.

CNBC 聯繫了幾家主要的招聘平臺，希望他們發表評論。

LinkedIn stated that their job posting policy requires posts to be genuine and accurate, and they're removed after six months. Indeed noted that some postings stay active during ongoing searches or continuous hiring, and ZipRecruiter stated that ghost jobs are prohibited under their policies. At the end of the day, when it comes to ghost jobs,

LinkedIn 表示，他們的職位發佈政策要求發佈的職位必須真實準確，並在六個月後刪除。Indeed指出，有些職位在持續搜索或持續招聘期間會保持活躍，而ZipRecruiter則表示，根據他們的政策，幽靈職位是被禁止的。歸根結底，說到 "虛假招聘"，我們必須指出以下幾點

I mean, companies got to do what they got to do. And I think they're willing to take that reputational risk if it means they can attract the best talent and do what's best for them at the end of the day. What ghost jobs speak about the labor market is that it's not currently friendly to job seekers, and companies are taking advantage of the labor market.

我的意思是，公司必須做他們必須做的事情。我認為，如果這意味著他們能吸引到最好的人才，並在一天結束時做對他們最有利的事，他們願意承擔這種聲譽風險。幽靈工作對勞動力市場的影響在於，目前的勞動力市場對求職者並不友好，而企業正在利用勞動力市場的優勢。

They're finding this opening that's this legal gray area, and they're taking advantage of it.

他們找到了這個法律灰色地帶，並加以利用。

And they don't need to be nice to job seekers because they think that they owe them nothing.

他們不需要對求職者好，因為他們認為自己不欠他們什麼。

And they think that they'll be able to push the cost of their own employees down with this because there's a lot of sentiment online about it being impossible to find a job right now.

他們認為這樣就能降低員工成本，因為網上有很多人說現在找不到工作。

So why am I going to leave my job and try to find another job? So I think what this might lead to, though, is job seekers doing the same thing to companies like keeping the doors open for themselves and looking for jobs the entire time they're working and having many recruitment contacts because that's what companies are doing. They're always looking for the next step and they're worried about themselves. Then that's going to create that same sentiment with employees.

那我為什麼要離職去找另一份工作呢？是以，我認為這可能會導致求職者對公司做同樣的事情，比如為自己敞開大門，在工作期間一直找工作，並有很多招聘聯繫人，因為這就是公司正在做的事情。他們總是在尋找下一步，為自己擔憂。這樣一來，員工也會產生同樣的情緒。

Right now, even JOLTS is giving us some confusing signals. The discussion about ghost jobs is one of the ways that the financial community is trying to understand these trends.

現在，就連 JOLTS 也給出了一些令人困惑的信號。關於 "幽靈工作 "的討論是金融界試圖理解這些趨勢的方法之一。

Unfortunately, we probably won't know whether these really are permanent or temporary changes in the prevalence of ghost jobs until after this cycle is over. And the more academic economists sit there and really parse the data out. But right now, what we have is a lot of hypotheses coming out of the people who are watching the data very closely. Ghost jobs is one interesting potential explanation for some of the more confusing patterns that we're seeing in the labor market.

遺憾的是，我們可能要等到本輪週期結束之後，才能知道幽靈工作的盛行究竟是永久性的還是暫時性的變化。更多的學術經濟學家會坐在那裡，對數據進行真正的解析。但現在，密切關注數據的人們提出了很多假設。對於我們在勞動力市場上看到的一些更令人困惑的模式，"幽靈工作 "是一個有趣的潛在解釋。