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I was an employment counselor in the late 1990s. Even then, ½ to ¾ of realistic, worthwhile jobs were phantoms.

FF to now and hiring portals silently drop viable applicants for a long list of never disclosed reasons. I know temp agencies that hire, send the employee out on 1 job then never again.

I've never know a time when hiring wasn't crap for entire classes of viable applicants.

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Talking about "ghost jobs" is like talking about "fake news": everyone that does assumes that only others do, not them. Everyone will somehow always pretend to be "the real thing", even to themselves. It is like misleading propaganda, it will always find a way.

The biggest irony is that the majority of HN's own "Who's Hiring" are ghost jobs.

I won't disappear, it won't even decrease, even with regulation.

How come temp agencies would only send someone out on one job? They make money based on placements so unless that worker has bad feedback from clients it would make sense to place them again.

You seem to underestimate their pool of applicants

> How come temp agencies would only send someone out on one job?

There was a clique of employees who were tight with management and got recurring work. This wouldn't have been a problem if the temp agency stopped advertising open jobs when their docket was over-full.

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