GoKawiil
Tech News
Employers increased job postings in September, according to new data, alongside a rise in gross hiring and a decline in layoffs. The improvement comes even as voters head to the polls amid persistent dissatisfaction over high prices.
A new survey finds that 86% of job candidates report having come across job postings they suspected were not tied to any actual open position. These 'ghost jobs' appear live on job boards despite the role not actively being filled, leaving many applicants submitting resumes into a void.
Kickresume analyzed nearly 97,000 Indeed listings across six industries for signs of so-called ghost jobs—postings companies never intend to fill. It found 36% of U.S. listings, and 43% in tech, had been live for more than 30 days, while exact reposts and 'urgent hiring' ads without deadlines each made up just 0.1% of postings.
Jay Jones, an out-of-work copywriter who calls himself 'The Profiler,' says he has spent months tracking down fraudulent job postings and recruiter accounts, mostly on LinkedIn. He told the Wall Street Journal he has helped get nearly 60,000 fake listings and about 7,000 fraudulent recruiter profiles taken down, often by spotting shared photos, near-identical bios, and matching profile URL patterns.
A new analysis of postings pulled directly from applicant tracking system APIs found that 28% of jobs listed on employer career sites remain open for more than 90 days after publication. The data covers postings verified as live on employer sites, tracked at the board level every few hours rather than scraped or estimated. The report also tracks 'reposts' — listings that close and reappear within 30 days for the same role — but does not label any individual posting a 'ghost job'.
Hacker News has posted its recurring monthly hiring thread for September 2026, where companies can list open positions directly. The post lays out submission rules, requiring location details and remote-work status, and restricting entries to employees of the hiring company rather than recruiters or job boards. It also links to several third-party search tools for browsing past listings and points to a companion thread for job seekers.