The Ghost Job Report · August 3, 2026
3,634 job postings on this board never close — and the average one that does lasts 12 days
Scope. These figures are a census of the 216,323 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.
What came down this week
Of the 216,323 postings currently browsable on VeritaHire, 34,005 disappeared from employer career pages in the seven days ending August 3, 2026. Most of those are probably jobs that were filled — which is good news for someone, just not the person who found the listing too late.
What came down this week
Over the past 30 days, 112,421 postings stopped appearing in employer feeds and were pulled from our board. The figure that deserves attention is this: 56 percent of those postings had been up for 14 days or less when they came down. The average posting that came down lasted 12 days. That is not a lot of time, and it has a direct implication for how you should pace your search.
To be precise about what "came down" means: we track employer career pages and official job feeds. When a posting disappears from those sources, we remove it from our board. We cannot tell from that signal alone whether the role was filled, put on hold, or pulled for some other reason. A posting disappearing quickly is, in most cases, a sign that the employer moved fast and made a hire. It is not, by itself, evidence of anything deceptive.
How long a posting really lasts
The 12-day average is worth sitting with. Conventional job-search advice often treats a weeks-old posting as a reasonable target. The data here suggests that by the time many postings are a week old, they are already in their final days. Of the 112,421 postings that expired in the last 30 days, 63,065 were gone within two weeks of going up.
The postings that do stay up longer skew the average upward, but they are the exception. If you are prioritizing which applications to send first, recency is the most reliable filter we can offer.
The postings that never close
A separate and more ambiguous category: 3,634 currently live postings have been taken down and reposted at least twice. That is 1.7 percent of everything on the board. These are sometimes called evergreen or pipeline postings — roles where an employer wants a standing pool of candidates rather than a specific open seat. They may reflect genuine, ongoing volume hiring. They may also reflect a role that has never actually opened. We flag them because the pattern is distinct from normal posting behavior, not because we can prove intent either way. If you are applying to one, it is worth asking in the interview whether the position is currently open or whether you are entering a general candidate pipeline.
Who was hiring
As of August 3, 3,270 employers had at least one live posting. The largest posting volumes came from Wipro with 3,146 listings, Domino's with 2,703, Tractor Supply with 2,644, Lowe's with 1,711, and Capgemini with 1,537. Northside, Bank of America, and TJ Maxx each had between 1,333 and 1,449 postings live.
By category, Operations led with 12,714 postings at a median stated pay of $128k. Healthcare followed with 10,296 postings at a $96k median. Sales had 9,898 postings, though the median stated pay there was $41k — a reminder that commission structure rarely shows up in the posting. Retail and Food Service accounted for 9,560 postings at a $37k median. Skilled Trades had 7,874 postings at $52k, and Admin and Office had 5,501 at $50k.
Among the 216,323 live postings, 103,305 — or 48 percent — list no experience requirement. Of those entry-level postings, 6,773 still ask for a bachelor's degree or higher. That is 7 percent of no-experience postings requiring a four-year credential anyway, which is a pattern worth knowing if you are early in your career and weighing whether to apply.
What this means if you are applying
A few practical points that follow directly from this week's figures:
- Apply within the first few days of a posting appearing. With a 12-day average lifespan and 56 percent of postings coming down within two weeks, a posting you find on day ten has a good chance of being filled or pulled before your application is reviewed.
- Sort by date posted, not by relevance score. Relevance ranking can surface listings that are days away from expiring.
- If a posting shows a repost flag on VeritaHire, ask directly in your outreach or interview whether a specific seat is open now.
- The entry-level category is nearly half the board, but 7 percent of those postings still want a degree for a role requiring no experience. Read requirements carefully before investing time in an application.
The 97,237 postings added this week represent genuine movement. The board is not static, and new listings are the most actionable ones.
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These counts are produced by re-reading employers' own career pages and job feeds on a continuous basis. A posting left up after a role is filled looks identical to an active one from where we sit.