The Ghost Job Report · July 30, 2026
3,393 job postings on this board never close — and the average one that does lasts 12 days
Scope. These figures are a census of the 235,400 live postings VeritaHire tracks — read from employers’ own ATS feeds and careers pages across five metros — recomputed each week. They are not a representative sample of all U.S. job postings, and nothing here is an estimate. Others measure posting removal too (LinkUp has since 2007; Revelio Labs and Greenhouse have published analyses); what we do differently is publish it free, on a standing cadence, with the method stated so a skeptic can check it.
Of the 235,400 postings currently visible on VeritaHire, 42,989 came down in the seven days ending July 30, 2026. That is roughly one in five postings removed in a single week — a pace that matters if you spent part of that week applying to something that was already gone.
What came down this week
When a posting disappears from an employer's own careers page or job feed, we pull it from our board. That is what happened to 42,989 listings this week, and over the past 30 days the total reached 99,634. In most cases, removal means a role was filled or pulled from active recruiting — that is genuinely good news for whoever got the job. The problem for everyone else is timing. Of the postings that came down over the past 30 days, 56 percent had been live for two weeks or less. In other words, more than half of all closed roles were on the market for only a short window before they went away. If you discovered a posting on day ten and spent four days polishing a cover letter, there is a reasonable chance it was already gone before you submitted.
How long a posting really lasts
The average posting that came down in the past 30 days had been live for 12 days. That is the full lifespan — not the time before the first interview, but the total time before the employer removed it from their own site. Twelve days is not a long runway. It is also an average, which means a meaningful share of postings lasted considerably less. The 56 percent figure above — the majority gone inside 14 days — is consistent with that. If you treat a job posting the way you might treat a sale flyer, something to get to when you have time, the data suggest that approach will cost you regularly.
The postings that never close
Then there is the other end of the distribution. Currently, 3,393 live postings — 1.4 percent of the board — have been taken down and reposted at least twice. These are the listings that keep reappearing. The pattern usually indicates one of two things: a role that is genuinely hard to fill and requires ongoing recruitment, or a standing pipeline posting where an employer continuously collects applications for a position type rather than a specific opening. Neither is fraudulent, but both behave differently from a standard posting. Applying to one of these does not mean a hiring decision is imminent. It may mean your résumé goes into a pool that is reviewed on the employer's schedule, not yours.
Who was hiring
New postings this week numbered 84,491, spread across 2,802 employers. The largest posting volumes came from Domino's (3,868 listings), Casey's General Stores (1,845), Allied Universal (1,832), Walgreens (1,814), Lowe's (1,686), Walmart (1,272), BAE Systems (1,122), and Northwestern Memorial Healthcare (998). High listing counts at companies like these typically reflect distributed, location-by-location hiring across many stores, facilities, or sites rather than a single large hiring event.
By category, Healthcare led with 10,304 live postings, followed by Retail & Food Service at 9,791, Operations at 7,520, Sales at 7,012, Skilled Trades at 5,896, and Admin & Office at 4,885. Median advertised pay varied considerably across these fields: Operations postings showed a median of $137k, Healthcare $98k, Skilled Trades and Admin & Office both $52k, Sales $41k, and Retail & Food Service $37k.
Entry-level postings — those stating no experience requirement — make up 49 percent of the board, or 115,390 listings. Of those, 7,224, or 6 percent, still ask for a bachelor's degree or higher. A posting that requires no experience but does require a degree is not necessarily contradictory, but it is worth reading carefully before investing significant application time.
What this means if you are applying
A few things follow directly from these numbers:
- Apply the same day you find a relevant posting. With an average lifespan of 12 days and 56 percent of closed roles disappearing inside two weeks, waiting even a few days meaningfully reduces the chance the posting is still active when you submit.
- Check the employer's own careers page before you apply. If a listing has already been removed there, it is coming down from our board shortly, if it has not already.
- Treat reposted listings differently. The 3,393 postings flagged as reposted at least twice may not have an imminent hire date. Applying is still reasonable, but calibrate your expectations accordingly.
- Read entry-level postings closely. If a posting requires no experience but does ask for a degree, make sure that requirement is one you meet before building an application around it.
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These counts come from re-reading employers' own job feeds and careers pages; when a posting disappears from the source, we remove it. A posting an employer has forgotten to take down after filling the role looks exactly the same to us as one that is still open.