Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

Enforceability and Legal Hurdles

• Many think a federal ban would be hard to pass and harder to enforce; companies can game titles, funding status, and org charts to stay technically compliant.
• Proving intent (“no plan to hire”) is seen as especially difficult; a company can always claim they intended to hire but didn’t find a qualified candidate or funding changed.
• First Amendment concerns are raised: regulating job ads may count as restricting commercial speech, which needs a “compelling interest” and narrow tailoring. Others counter that deceptive advertising is already regulable as fraud.
• Fear that vague standards like “misleading” or “inaccurate” could drive expensive litigation, with ambiguous edge cases (roles that change, slow hiring, failed searches).

Scale, Harm, and Causes

• Some accept the cited ~17% “ghost job” figure as tolerable; others report experiences closer to 80% in certain sectors or periods.
• Harms cited: wasted time and money for applicants, polluted labor-market data, misleading signals to investors, and encouragement of oversupply in certain fields.
• Common “ghost-like” patterns: salary far below market, hyper-specific or obviously “pre-baked” requirements, perpetual listings, or postings used for H‑1B/green card compliance or internal transfers.
• Some argue many unfilled postings are not malicious but caused by indecisive hiring managers, shifting priorities, or unrealistic expectations (“senior for junior pay”).

Regulatory and Market Proposals

• Ideas in favor of regulation:
  • Mandatory disclosure fields (funding, backfill vs new, internal priority, deadline, outcome tags: internal/external/H‑1B).
  • Time limits and “use it or close it” rules on postings and interview timelines.
  • Post-hoc reporting of how each posting was resolved, enabling public stats and “naming and shaming.”
• Concerns and counterarguments:
  • May push firms to avoid public postings, rely more on contractors, or build opaque “off-market” channels.
  • Lawsuits or individual rights of action could benefit lawyers more than candidates and scare off smaller employers.
  • Some prefer taxes or posting fees with refunds on actual hires to mildly penalize “spam” listings instead of outright bans.

Platforms, Power, and Alternatives

• LinkedIn and similar job boards are criticized as spammy, dark-patterned, and rife with data-harvesting or MLM/ scam “jobs.”
• Suggestions include a government-run job board as a public utility benchmark and independent marketplaces that track employer hiring behavior.
• Several note ghost/performative postings also exist in academia and government, reinforcing that this is a broader structural, not just tech, problem.