Sen. Ruben Gallego has seen enough. The Arizona Democrat fired off letters to the Department of Labor and Federal Trade Commission this week. He wants answers on “ghost jobs.” These are postings for roles employers never plan to fill. They waste applicants’ time. They distort official counts of job openings. And they may be feeding policymakers bad signals about the strength of the American labor market.
The Fortune exclusive lays it out. Gallego told the publication that such listings “are becoming increasingly common and are wasting young Americans’ valuable time and energy.” He questions whether federal data can still be trusted if ghost postings register as legitimate vacancies. Short answer from the senator: probably not.
Numbers back his concern. In April, employers reported 7.6 million job openings but made only 5.1 million hires. That leaves roughly one in three advertised spots unfilled, per Bureau of Labor Statistics figures cited in the report. A 2024 Resume Builder survey found 40 percent of employers admitted to posting at least one role they had no intention of filling that year. The practice spans every level. Entry-level roles. Mid-career positions. Even executive seats.
But why do companies do this? Motives vary. Some harvest resumes to build talent pipelines for later. Others project an image of growth to impress investors or calm employees. A separate analysis in Forbes from May revealed 63 percent of hiring managers who use ghost ads do so to make current staff believe expansion plans exist. Another 62 percent aim to make workers feel replaceable and thus more productive. Cynical. Effective.
The ripple effects hit harder than many admit. Job seekers burn hours tailoring applications that go nowhere. Young graduates already face rising unemployment rates in white-collar fields. Remote work plays a role here too, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York research referenced in Fortune. Yet Gallego highlights another culprit: artificial intelligence. “The use of artificial intelligence (AI) by online hiring platforms has also led to the increase in ghost jobs as employers can easily advertise an opening, allowing companies to recruit less actively and leave job postings open for long periods of time,” he wrote in the letters.
State lawmakers have started to push back.
New York’s Senate passed legislation requiring employers to disclose whether a position is truly open and, if not, to state that clearly in bold letters. Pennsylvania introduced the “Ghost Job Postings Prevention Act,” which would ban false postings outright, demand hiring timelines, and restrict how long companies can hold applicant data. Similar bills surfaced in New Jersey, California, and Kentucky this year, the Forbes piece notes. New York Sen. Mark Gianaris put it plainly after his chamber acted: “Ghost jobs aren’t just frustrating, they’re dishonest and exploitative.” No more applying to jobs that don’t exist.
Federal attention lagged until now. Gallego’s letters press the Trump administration to investigate prevalence, clarify how ghost jobs appear in official statistics, and outline enforcement options. He specifically asks whether current data remains reliable for shaping policy on wages, unemployment benefits, or interest rates. Former FTC attorney Daniel J. Grimm, quoted in Forbes, argues the practice already falls under the agency’s authority to combat deceptive acts. “Ghost jobs can even corrupt the economic data that inform critical nationwide policy decisions, such as the size and timing of federal interest rate cuts,” Grimm said.
Data gaps have persisted for years. Analyses show a stubborn 28 to 33 percent gap between reported openings and actual hires stretching back to 2021. In some sectors like government and education, the phantom rate climbs above 50 percent. Employers report openings that sit for months. Algorithms keep them visible. Applicants apply in droves. Silence follows. The cycle repeats.
And. This isn’t abstract. It shapes behavior. Discouraged candidates drop out of the labor force. Talent pools shrink for real openings. Trust erodes between workers and employers. Policymakers chasing inflated vacancy numbers might misjudge slack in the economy. They could delay rate cuts. Or tighten policy prematurely. Either mistake carries costs.
CEOs feel the uncertainty too. Nearly half in a recent Conference Board survey said economic conditions worsened over the prior six months. They cited everything from geopolitical tensions to AI’s uncertain impact. Ghost jobs add one more layer of fog.
Gallego, a Marine veteran who worked construction sites, restaurants, and factories before Congress, brings a ground-level view. He sees the human toll on young people entering a market littered with mirages. His push for transparency from the Department of Labor and FTC could force companies to think twice. Or at least disclose intent upfront.
Whether the administration responds remains unclear. Past calls for action, including a 2024 letter from a Texas congressman, produced little movement. But momentum at the state level suggests the issue has crossed a threshold. Job boards, platforms, and employers now face scrutiny from multiple directions.
The labor data itself needs cleaning. Official statistics capture postings, not intent. That simple fact creates the warp Gallego describes. Until measurement improves or disclosure rules tighten, the ghost economy will linger. Millions of applications will vanish into digital voids. And the signals that guide billion-dollar policy choices will stay clouded.
Change won’t come easy. Companies defend the practice as legitimate market research or pipeline building. Regulators hesitate to insert themselves into hiring language. Yet the evidence piles up. Surveys. Hiring gaps. Frustrated applicants. Lawmaker frustration. Something has to give.
Gallego’s letters mark a notable escalation. By targeting both labor data integrity and potential consumer deception, he frames ghost jobs as more than an annoyance. They represent a systemic flaw in how America tracks and manages its workforce. The response from Washington will reveal whether policymakers agree.
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