The Case For(4)
Deceptive ghost postings impose measurable, quantifiable harm on job seekers that existing law does not remedy
Reasoning: Applicants spend real time and often money (transportation, time off current jobs) pursuing postings with no realistic chance of resulting in an interview or hire, and current consumer-protection statutes were not written with online job boards in mind.
Evidence: A 2024 survey of 753 U.S. recruiters by MyPerfectResume found eight in ten admitted their company posts jobs that are filled or do not exist, and legal experts note employers may already face exposure under state laws against unfair business practices and misrepresentation even absent a ghost-jobs-specific statute.
Strong strength
A meaningful share of postings are demonstrably not tied to genuine hiring intent, not just delayed timelines
Reasoning: If postings are used to project growth to investors, to apply internal pressure on existing staff, or to harvest applicant data, the harm is not accidental friction but a deliberate use of a public posting for a purpose unrelated to filling the role.
Evidence: A 2024 ResumeBuilder.com survey of 650 hiring managers found nearly 39% acknowledged using ghost ads to gather resume pipelines, project company growth, or create internal pressure, and a separate Resume Builder survey found 59% of hiring managers reported posting fake ads specifically to collect resumes for future use.
Moderate strength
Disclosure-based mandates, not blanket bans, can be calibrated to preserve legitimate uses while penalizing bad-faith postings
Reasoning: The leading state bills do not prohibit non-vacancy postings outright; they require labeling, giving employers a lawful path to pipeline-build while giving job seekers the information to self-select out of low-probability applications.
Evidence: New York's S8877 requires postings to state in bold, capital letters whether a position is a current vacancy, will be filled beyond 90 days, or has no current vacancy and is only collecting resumes, with violations triggering a $2,500 fine per posting that doubles if uncorrected.
Strong strength
Precedent from pay-transparency laws shows disclosure mandates can shift market norms even with imperfect enforcement
Reasoning: Even acknowledging enforcement gaps, mandatory disclosure changed employer behavior at scale once it became the legal default, suggesting a similar mechanism could reduce (even if not eliminate) ghost postings.
Evidence: The wave of state ghost-job bills builds directly on the pay-range disclosure trend that Colorado started in 2021 and that subsequently spread to other states, though compliance with those pay-transparency laws has been described as uneven due to limited enforcement.
Moderate strength
The Case Against(5)
A binding legal deadline or genuine-vacancy standard is unworkable against pipeline-building, which is a legitimate and common recruiting practice
Reasoning: Employers cannot always predict hiring timing given budget approvals, reorganizations, and headcount freezes, and criminalizing forward-looking postings would remove a tool companies use to shorten time-to-hire when a role does open.
Evidence: An employment attorney quoted by Bloomberg Law said pipeline building serves legitimate purposes because roles may be approved and then paused as headcount requirements and budgets change, and New Jersey's own bill responds to this by permitting non-vacancy postings for up to 90 days if the employer disclosed no vacancy and had hired at least six people for similar roles in the prior year.
Strong strength
Some postings exist because federal law requires them, not because employers are trying to deceive anyone
Reasoning: PERM labor certification rules force employers to run recruitment advertising for a defined window even when a specific candidate, often an existing visa-sponsored employee, has already been selected, meaning some 'ghost' postings are a byproduct of complying with immigration law rather than evidence of employer bad faith.
Evidence: PERM rules require an employer to run recruitment advertising for a defined window even where the employer already has a specific worker in mind, producing postings that satisfy a legal test rather than reflect open competition.
Strong strength
Compliance costs and litigation exposure fall disproportionately on companies operating across multiple states with divergent disclosure formats
Reasoning: Absent a federal standard, multistate employers face conflicting bold-type disclosure language, differing thresholds (100 employees in New York, exemptions for under-50 in at least one state proposal), and different penalty regimes, raising real administrative cost without a uniform national rule to comply with.
Evidence: An attorney noted that larger, multistate companies are 'trying to figure out whether to move to national compliance or do this on state-by-state basis', while proposed state bills carry different penalty structures — New York's $2,500-per-posting fine that doubles after 30 days versus New Jersey's proposed $300 first-offense penalty.
Moderate strength
Enforcement of similar transparency mandates has historically been weak, so a ban may create compliance theater rather than real change
Reasoning: If regulators lack the staffing or political will to audit postings at scale, a new legal prohibition mainly generates paperwork and legal review costs for compliant employers while doing little to actually deter the worst offenders.
Evidence: Coverage of New York's prior pay-transparency law noted that compliance has been uneven in part because of limited enforcement, even though the law forced many employers to include salary information.
Moderate strength
Defining a 'ghost job' with legal precision is genuinely difficult, inviting either over- or under-inclusive enforcement
Reasoning: Distinguishing a slow-moving but genuine search from bad-faith posting requires drawing lines around intent and timing that are inherently fact-specific, and committee hearings on pending bills have flagged unresolved definitional questions.
Evidence: Concerns noted at New Jersey committee hearings include the potential burden on smaller employers, consideration for positions with high turnover and constant hiring, application to public sector hiring, and defining the terms 'interviewed' and 'filled'.
Moderate strength