Faced with a toxic work culture and an even worse job market, many workers find themselves caught in a bind—better known as bad boss and job insecurity. Whether they’re dealing with toxic coworkers, an insurmountable daily workload, or a terrible boss, anxiety is at the core of their daily 9-to-5 job.
Not surprisingly, many employers aren’t making things better—in fact, they’re often making them worse. A recent survey by Resume Builder found that many employers are actively posting fake job openings online to trick their overworked employees into believing a better, more balanced future is in store for them, and to deceive job seekers in the process.
Employers advertise fake jobs to deceive overworked and burned-out employees into believing that their situation will improve.
“Companies are posting fake job openings to make it appear like they are hiring more people to help alleviate the workload of many employees,” workplace culture expert Dan Schawbel explained on TikTok.
“Employees are burned out right now. It’s the year of efficiency; they’re trying to do more with fewer resources,” he continued. “Employers aren’t hiring more people, they’re pretending they are. And that’s a huge problem.”
Resume Builder’s survey found that over 40% of employers have posted fake job advertisements in the past year, and 30% still have them online today. Their companies and hiring managers not only openly defend their decision to post these job advertisements, but also argue that they are beneficial – for their company’s own productivity and stability, of course.
Fake job postings not only have a demeaning effect on current employees, they also mislead applicants who run into difficulties in their job search.
Many employers use these fake job postings to signal to the market that they are expanding – or more precisely, to signal to their competitors that they are growing, even if they do not actually plan to do so.
In some cases, they use these fake jobs fraudulently to signal to their employees that they are “easily replaceable,” but in other cases they are intended to have a supportive effect.
For workers desperate for more colleagues to share the work with, these job postings give them false hope that help is on the way—and that they can look forward to a future with less work stress, more free time, and a more manageable workload.
However, this is often not the case at all.
“Part of business practice has always relied on misinformation to try to instill fear and uncertainty in employees,” management consultant Daniel Boscaljon told Fortune. “Many illogical motives can lead to this behavior. For example, you want to make employees believe they are not being worked as hard, you want to make them feel insecure, or you want to send a signal to the competition.”
Although employers consider them “ethical,” fake job postings are inherently misleading—and a sign of toxic leadership and a harmful corporate culture.
Despite the controversy these fake job postings have sparked online, over 70% of hiring managers consider them to be “morally acceptable” – whether to assess the market, compare benefits and compensation with competitors, or serve as a placeholder for company growth.
Of course, these job postings aren’t just misleading for current employees. They’re also incredibly deceptive for people looking for a job.
Forty percent of job seekers have admitted to being ignored by a potential employer. In fact, many never even make contact or are invited for an interview. These fake job postings are part of the problem.
Whether or not they intentionally mislead job seekers, they waste their time, give them false hope, and keep them away from jobs that actually offer them a job.
“It’s psychotic behavior to pretend you’re hiring people when people are literally starving,” argued content creator Kevin White on TikTok. “People have been unemployed for months and months, but you want to play around.”
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a news and entertainment writer at YourTango, focusing on health and wellbeing, social policy and human stories.
