Are you paying a ‘ghost tax’ when looking for a job? 37% of employment seekers fall into this common trap

The American job market is now filled with so-called ghost jobs —listings for positions that don’t actually exist, from companies that have no intent to hire—wasting not only hours of your time, but also your money, too.

According to a comprehensive study by Enhancv, a global AI resume builder, 37% of people looking for jobs are now paying a “ghost tax”—reporting direct out-of-pocket expenses, including travel, childcare, and paid certifications, as a result of chasing phantom listings.

The March 2026 study surveyed 1,000 U.S. professionals across all career levels.

“When job seekers are losing actual money to engage with a company’s brand, we aren’t just looking at an HR problem, we’re looking at a systemic breakdown of the professional social contract,” Enhancv co-founder Volen Vulkov says. “We are moving toward a low-trust economy where the friction of finding talent will eventually cost more than the ‘free’ data companies are currently trying to extract.”

Why are companies posting for a job they don’t intend to fill, at least not in the near future? It turns out corporations are using the posting as a way to both gather competitive intelligence about the application pool, and signal the appearance of growth, the study finds.

Other findings include that nearly half, or 47% of candidates have applied for roles they later discovered were non-existent, indicating the tactic is a common strategy now among mainstream corporations.

Technology and marketing have highest number of these deceptive listings, with 85.7% of tech workers and 87.5% of marketing professionals reporting ghost jobs. Meanwhile, over 50% of senior professionals, or applicants with over eight years’ experience, report applying and interviewing for ghost jobs.

One red flag: seeing a “brand new” job reposted after receiving an automatic rejection, according to 16.1% of those surveyed.

Not surprisingly, 12.1% of respondents have completely abandoned major jobs boards, and report a “soul-crushing” cycle of high-effort applications met with crickets.

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