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'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

toomuchtodo

Comments (110)

  • wps
    In the same way that credit card companies are required to tell you the exact reasons your score has changed, companies should be required to give at least any sort of notice of rejection. Something as simple as: we have proceeded with another candidate (if and only if the role was actually filled). I know this opens up a lot of questions about enforcement and employer discrimination, but something has to be done.
  • danielvaughn
    I'd support it at the federal level. It's cruel towards people looking for work, and it costs them real time at a point in their lives when time is such a critical factor.
  • tempaway2e5645
    If you make Ghost Jobs illegal the whole thing will still be happening, it will just be driven underground to unlicenced 'haunted houses' which are less safe for the workers and less safe for the patrons. Its much better to keep this sort of thing legal and have licensed haunted houses where its easier for authorities to keep a check on the unwelfare of the ghosts and make sure organised underworld groups are not moving in and taking protection money or soul dealing.
  • mancerayder
    How do you enforce that?I don't even know what I applied to that's a ghost and what isn't. Maybe I'm completely clueless, but there's no difference: recruiters ghost, sometimes companies ghost and sometimes they reply, sometimes you get an F U letter, you're not good enough, sometimes not.How did people even find out ghost jobs existed? I feel like the swindle must not be new.
  • tancop
    great news if this moves forward. while we at it lets ban ghosting applicants and make companies give a direct rejection email with a reason, it can be as simple as "not qualified" or "we found a better candidate, try again next time". waiting for answers that never come is always the worst part.
  • bsimpson
    > or they might be legally obligated to post a job publicly, even if they’ve already identified the person they want to hireFamous/obvious bug in the H1B process, but not sure how this legislation would address it. If they're legally obligated to post the role, won't they just say "we'll fill this job <whenever the H1B process says we can take this down>"?
  • sh34r
    IMO they don’t need another law for this. Fraud is already illegal. They need to make a very public example by indicting a few HR ghouls under wire fraud statutes for their fraudulent job listings.
  • mhb
    Cue the unintended consequences. I don't know what they all might be, but one possibility is more reliance of employers on walled gardens like alumni sources.
  • anotheraccount9
    My company does it all the time. I've noticed all these ghost jobs are advertised in the same large city (Toronto), yet our offices are elsewhere.
  • Cyclone_
    I'm curious how they would even enforce this law. It seems like they would need to require some record keeping that's made available to the government.
  • airstrike
    I love this initiative.I also feel like there's a very clear private solution here which is creating a company for both employers and employees to use which requires more transparency from both.This would essentially become a signal to both sides of the transaction that this is someone you want to do business with, and it's self-regulating.
  • 0x59
    I'm just about to launch a job posting data api with postings I aggregate and very lightly normalize (https://kaleh.net/trace)Anyone have an idea how this might impact me? They're not my postings, I just package em up and ship em. Strive to comply with all laws and TOS and not trying to make trouble.
  • PaulHoule
    Kinda funny. When I was looking for my current job I had an early (2019 or so) AI based system to manage my job hunt and I was struggling with "ghost jobs" and obvious fraudulent listings in New York's job bank. (e.g. they say it is a Java job in Syracuse and it is really a Cold Fusion job in Atlanta)If my job search had gone on any longer I would have given myself (and my bot) a job to search and destroy those listings.
  • Oras
    This is a great initiative. But it should apply to job boards and publishers too, asking the posting company to provide evidence. There is another issue which is fake jobs used to harvest CVs. LinkedIn and Google for jobs have a lot of these too.Good start nevertheless
  • robotnikman
    Good to see. The job market is screwed right now, and this is one big step to fixing things.
  • palinnilap
    What if online job applications were illegal, and you signed up for interviews in person with a resume after seeing the ad online.
  • michaelmrose
    Wouldn't it be easier for them to include a disclaimer in every job listing fulfilling the letter of the law while escaping every bit of the purpose.
  • jadbox
    This should be followed in every state.
  • tim-tday
    Please
  • david_shi
    Thought this was going to be a Sopranos/mob thing
  • toomuchtodo
  • anon
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  • OutOfHere
    New York doesn't even enforce its salary requirement declaration law. It will most definitely not enforce this law either. It will just sit on the books being violated openly.---https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8877
  • avaer
    Ghost jobs didn't come from nowhere.The counterpoint is: make it a crime to apply for a job using AI, without disclosing your use of AI (so that your application can be thrown in the trash). Would you support that law? Because when job applications are slop, the openings are slop, and it's hard to separate the two.Obviously the current state of things hurts only legitimate actors, but that's the world we live in today.
  • EGreg
    As a libertarian, I am okay with laws that allow people to sue for fraudulent or intentionally very misleading statements, especially ones made publicly and impose compounding costs on a lot of people. This is public harm. The laws are protections for regular people, in this case people who are looking for jobs. I'm also okay with Pigovian Taxes for the same reason: forcing actors who externalize costs to the public, to internalize those costs.Laws are frameworks. My brand of libertarianism is "decentralizing concentrations of power" and "giving people the software tools to self-organize". But in the meantime, yeah, if there would be laws for anything, it would be this kind of stuff. It is why I can get behind Intellectual Property for Trademarks, before I get behind Copyrights and Patents. Trademarks are about making sure actors don't misrepresent who they are and appropriate the brand of other actors. I think many libertarians would come to support Trademark enforcement laws if they were presented that way.
  • anon
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